New 


BY   WALTER    P.   PHILLIPS 

(JOHN     OAKUM) 

TOG:  'R   WITH    MISCELLANEOUS 

MATTER    FROM    VARIOUS    SOURCES 
NT     ve*  AND  A    CATALOGUE     n?    x 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


Sketches  Old  and  New 


BY 


WALTER    P.    PHILLIPS 

(John   Oakum) 


SUPPLEMENTED  BY  AN  ADDRESS  ENTITLED 

"FROM  FRANKLIN  TO  EDISON" 
A  CATALOGUE,  Etc.,  Etc. 


NEW  YORK,    U.   S.   A. 

J.   H.   BUNNELL  y  COMPANY 

No.   20  PARK   PLACE 


Copyright,   1897 
By   Walter   P.    Phillips. 


'»\ 


THIS   VOLUME   IS   LOVINGLY   INSCRIBED 
TO  THE   MEMORY    OF 

Wl  LLIS  J.  COOK 


550577 


CONTENTS 


ADDENDUM 


PAGE 


Phillips's  Morse  Automatic  Tele- 
graph        i 

By  Way  of  Introduction            .         .  9 

Old  Jim  Lawless      .         .         .        .  17 

Posie  Van  Dusen          .         .  25 

Little  Tip  McCloskey            .         .  39 

An  Autumn  Episode    ....  49 

Cap  De  Costa 61 

Old  George  Wentvvorth  75 

Patsy  Flannagan       ....  91 

Narcissa 105 

An  Agreeable  Saunterer       .  117 

Pop  Donaldson 139 

Bif 153 


From  Franklin  to  Edison         .        .167 
The  Phillips  Code  .         .        .        203 


PHILLIPS'S  MORSE  AUTOMATIC  TELEGRAPH 


SOME    INTERESTING  CORRESPONDENCE  OF  THIRTY 

YEARS  AGO 

{Samuel  F.  B.  Morse  to  Walter  P.  Phillips.") 

New  York,  April  27,  1869. 
My  Dear  Sir: — Ever  since  I  received  the  proof  of  your  great  skill, 
in  connection  with  your  skilful  associates,  in  testing  rapid  transmission 
of  despatches  by  the  Morse  Telegraph  System,  I  have  been  desirous 
of  manifesting  to  you,  and  also  to  N.  J.  Snyder,  Esq.,  of  Philadelphia, 
some  token  of  my  gratification  on  your  accomplishment  of  feats  which, 
so  far  as  I  know,  are  unexampled  in  the  annals  of  telegraphy.  Please, 
therefore,  accept  from  me,  on  this,  the  78th  anniversary  of  my  birth, 
the  accompanying  gold   pencil   case   and   pen,  as   a   very   slight  and 


indeed  inadequate  expression  of  my  admiration  of  your  masterly  per- 
formance of  recording  2,731  words  in  one  hour;  a  feat  which  I  have  not 
failed  to  put  on  record  in  my  report  to  the-  Department  of  State  on  the 
telegraph  apparatus  of  the  Paris  Exposition  of  1867 

The  necessity  for  exclusive  attention  in  preparing  the  above-men- 
tioned report  has  prevented  an  earlier  recognition  of  your  skill.  My 
thanks  are  also  due  to  all  concerned  in  the  satisfactorj  result  ol  the 
test  of  speedy  transmission.  While  your  associates  deserve  hi.^h 
praise  for  their  rare  dexteriu  in  manipulation,  you  and  Mr.  Snyder,  I 
think,  deserve  the  highest  praise  for  the  admirable  and  indeed  I. mil 
less  manner  of  recording  that  which  was  so  ably  transmitted.  A.  <  ept, 
also,  the  assurance  of  my  sincere  respect  and  esteem. 

Sam  1  El     F.    B     MORS! 


11  rillLLIPS  S    MORSE  AUTOMATIC   TELEGRAPH 

{Walter  P.  Phillips  to  Samuel F.  B.  Morse.') 

Providence,  April  30,  1869. 

My  Dear  Sir:— The  elegant  and  valuable  pencil  case  and  pen,  of 
which  your  kindness  has  made  me  the  recipient,  together  with  your 
beautiful  letter  accompanying  it,  reached  me  to-day. 

However  highly  I  may  prize  so  great  a  token  of  your  interest  in  my 
performance  as  the  former,  it  is  altogether  beyond  my  means  to 
express,  in  a  becoming  manner,  my  gratitude  to  you  for  the  latter. 
While  I  shall  ever  cherish  the  gift— valuable  intrinsically,  but  an 
hundred-fold  more  valuable  from  its  association  with  you,  whom  the 
world  can  never  cease  to  love  and  honor  — I  shall  regard  your  letter  as 
the  most  valuable  worldly  possession  to  which  I  can  ever  attain,  and 
one  in  which  my  pride  will  increase  as  years  wear  on,  and  I  come  to 
possess  apace  still  more  comprehensive  ideas  than  those  I  entertain 
already  of  your  gigantic  genius  and  enterprise,  and  the  great  con- 
tribution which  you  have  made  to  the  development  of  civilization. 

Indeed,  sir,  I  am  keenly  sensible  of  the  honor  which  the  coupling 
of  your  name  with  mine  must  entail  on  me,  as  I  am,  also,  of  the  little 
I  have  done  to  deserve  your  praise. 

Most  gratefully  and  respectfully  yours, 

Walter  P.  Phillips. 

To  Prof.  Samuel  F.  B.  Morse. 


PHILLIPS'S  MORSE  AUTOMATIC  TELEGRAPH 

WALTER  P.  PHILLIPS  IN  THE  "TELEGRAPH  AGE  " 

From  time  to  time  my  telegraphic  friends  who  know  of  my  Morse 
Automatic  system  write  to  me  asking  terms  on  which  I  will  supply 
a  set  to  enable  them  to  become  proficient  as  typewriter  operators, 
by  practicing  typewriting  at  home  from  the  Morse  sending  done  by 
the  transmitting  side  of  the  Morse  Automatic  system.  The  difficulty 
in  the  way  of  my  supplying  the  demand,  which  seems  to  grow  rather 
than  to  subside,  has  been  that  all  the  sets  which  were  in  use  on  The 
United  Press  wires,  and  which  reverted  to  me  when  that  organiza- 
tion went  out  of  active  business,  were  arranged  for  an  incandescent 
light  circuit  as  the  motive  power,  and  it  has  only  been  within  a  short 
time  that  I  have  found  it  feasible  to  adapt  my  mechanism  to  the 
power  to  be  had  through  the  medium  of  a  spring  motor,  such  as  is 
used  on  the  graphophone.  By  this  means  I  am  now  able  to  supply 
a  compact  instrument  that  will  meet  the  requirements  of  the  many 
who  have  not  yet  conquered  the  typewriter,  but  are  anxious  to  do  so, 
thus  putting  a  premium  on  their  work. 


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PHILLIPS  S    MORSE   AUTOMATIC  TELEGRAPH  111 

There  is  no  field  in  which  expert  telegraphers  can  make  their 
value  felt  as  markedly  as  in  connection  with  the  slug  casting  mech- 
anism known  as  the  linotype.  The  time  will  conic,  undoubtedly, 
when  a  very  great  deal  of  matter  will  be  copied  from  the  wire  and 
set  up  on  the  linotype. 

This  has  been  done  already  to  a  considerable  extent  by  some 
operators,  notably  by  Mr.  Kihm,  of  the  Brooklyn  Eagle,  but  the 
Morse  Automatic  system,  as  arranged  for  that  special  purpose,  will 
enable  any  first-class  operator  who  has  familiarized  himself  with 
the  linotype  keyboard,  to  use  that  machine  with  as  much  ease  as 
he  uses  the  typewriter.  My  plan  contemplates  taking  the  sending 
on  a  matrix  and  delivering  it  to  the  operator  at  any  time  and  at  any 
gait  that  suits  his  convenience. 

The  transmitting  part  of  the  machine  will  be  under  his  absolute 
control,  while  the  recording  half  of  it  will  take  without  breaks  and 
store  anything  that  comes  over  the  wire.  This  matter  can  be  repro- 
duced within  five  seconds,  or  five  years  later,  if  that  were  neces- 
sary. In  view  of  all  the  tendencies,  the  day  when  Morse  men 
who  can  use  the  linotype  will  be  in  demand  is  not  far  distant,  and 
where  the  situation  admits  of  their  filling  the  dual  positions  referred 
to,  their  compensation  cannot  fail  to  be  much  better  than  it  is  in 
scarcely  any  other  field. 

ALBERT  C.  PHILLIPS  IN  THE  "TELEGRAPH  AGE" 

I  read  with  interest  the  letter  from  my  father  which  yon  pub- 
lished in  a  recent  issue  of  the  Telegraph  Age,  telling  of  the  success- 
ful application  of  his  reproducer  for 'use  in  connection  with  the  lino- 
type. It  strikes  me  that  this  type  of  machine  will  be  of  great  value 
in  the  smaller  telegraph  offices  at  way-stations. 

A  few  years  ago,  when  I  was  a  reporter,   I   frequently  had  occa 
sion  to  visit  the  small  towns  near  New  York.     It  is  every  reporter's 
experience  that  alter  his  story  is  covered  he  has  anywhere  from  one 
to  three  hours  to  wait  for  a  train  back  to  the  city. 

The  local  fire  engine  house  and  the  railway  station  are  the  least 
desolate  places  to  put  in  this  time.  I  usually  chose  the  railway 
station,  in  the  hope  that  a  belated  train  of  the  day  before  might 
happen  along,  and  with  a  view  to  swapping  yams  with  the  tele- 
graph operator.  On  these  excursions  I  have  often  been  impressed 
with  the  many  interruptions  to  which  the  average  country  operator 
is  subjected,  and  the  consequent  diminution  in  the  capacity  of  a 
wire  which  passes  through  a  number  of  these  places.  Even  if 
he  is  not  called  on  to  check  trunks  and  milk  cans,  he  usually  has 


Jv  phillips's  morse  automatic  telegraph 

to  sell  tickets  and  answer  questions  about  trains.  The  noise  of 
passing  trains,  especially  in  summer,  when  the  doors  and  windows 
are  open,  is  another  source  of  interruption. 

All  these  things  mean  that  a  first-class  sender  in  New  York, 
working  a  circuit  through  small  towns,  is  liable  to  constant  breaks, 
and  that  his  capacity  and  that  of  the  wire  is  greatly  reduced.  With 
a  Morse  Automatic  machine  in  each  of  these  offices  this  difficulty 
would  be  entirely  obviated.  The  country  operator,  when  queried 
about  the  next  train  to  Maguffinsville,  could  shut  off  his  repro- 
ducer, let  the  other  operator  continue  sending  into  the  recorder, 
and,  when  he  had  attended  to  the  other  demands  on  his  time, 
could  take  up  his  work  again  without  interrupting  the  sending 
at  all. 

This  gain,  of  course,  would  be  entirely  aside  from  the  primary 
gain  due  to  the  possibility  of  the  sender's  disposing  of  the  mes- 
sages for  one  way-station  at  top  speed  and  going  ahead  with  those 
for  another  place,  leaving  the  receiving  operator  to  grind  out  his 
particular  grist  at  his  own  particular  gait. 

Under  these  conditions,  I  feel  sure,  the  country  operator  would 
have  so  much  more  time  and  be  so  much  freer  from  exasperating 
conditions,  that  the  railway  station  would  be  established  as  a  sure 
winner,  as  against  the  fire  engine  house,  as  a  refuge  for  the  way- 
faring reporter. 


A  PRACTICAL  SCHEME 

(From  the  New  York  Sun) 

There  was  an  interesting  exhibition  on  Sunday  of  a  recently  in- 
vented system  of  rapid  telegraphy.  It  was  given  in  Room  623  of 
the  Postal  Telegraph  Building.  The  system  is  the  invention  of 
R.  H.  Weiny  and  Walter  P.  Phillips,  both  of  this  city,  and  it  is  in- 
tended to  be  applied  directly  to  the  ordinary  telegraph  lines  and 
to  be  operated  by  the  currents  now  in  use. 

What  Phillips's  Morse  Automatic  Telegraph  will  do  is  to 
double  or  treble  the  number  of  words  that  can  be  sent  over  a  single 
wire,  and  this  without  requiring  that  the  operators  learn  anything 
beyond  that  which  the  present  Morse  operators  know  now.  This 
result  is  accomplished  by  the  addition  to  each  office  of  a  set  of  very 
simple  instruments.  When  there  is  no  need  of  hurrying  matter 
forward  over  the  wires  the  rapid  system  can  be  cut  out  of  use  by 
changing  a  plug,  and  the  wires  can  be  used  in  the  ordinary  way- 
sending  messages   directly   by   the   key.     The   system   is   one   which 


WALTER  P.  SUESMAN 
Senior  member  of  the  law  firm  of  Suesman  &  Suesman,  of  Providence,  R.  I.,  wat 
for  several  years  Assistant  General  Western  Manager  of  The  United  Press  in  Chicago. 
As  well  as  being  a  first-class  telegrapher,  he  is  a  finished  and  skilful  pianist.  He 
received  his  musical  education  at  the  Chicago  Musical  College,  and  graduated  in  1S90, 
when  he  carried  off  the  first  prize  for  composition  and  harmony.  He  is  also  a 
graduate  of  the  Chicago  College  of  Law.  Main  of  our  matrices  are  mule  by  Mi. 
Suesman  and  his  brother  Asa. 


PHILLIPS  S   MORSE  AUTOMATIC  TELEGRAPH  V 

is  of  value  principally  to  the  telegraph  companies  themselves  and 
to  the  users  of  leased  wires,  but  the  public  would  often  hud  a  direct 
benefit  from  its  adoption  through  getting  messages  promptly,  which 
are  now  often  delayed  when  there  is  trouble  with  the  wires  and 
their  capacity  is  reduced  below  the  normal. 

In  this  system  the  messages  are  recorded  in  raised  telegraphic 
characters  on  a  strip  of  paper,  and  this  strip  being  run  through 
a  proper  machine  the  characters  are  repeated  by  sound  at  the 
other  end  of  the  wire,  and  the  operator,  reading  them  by  ear, 
takes  them  upon  a  typewriter  or  by  hand.  The  transcribing  operator 
can  vary  the  speed  of  the  tape  as  it  goes  through  the  machine  to 
suit  himself,  can  stop  it  at  any  point,  and  can  pull  it  back  if  he 
wants  it  repeated.  It  is  asserted  that  the  greater  number  of  mis- 
takes that  occur  in  the  Wheatstone  system  are  in  the  reading  and 
transcribing,  and  that  these  are  done  away  with  in  the  new  system, 
because  the  ear  is  more  accurate  than  the  eye  and  also  faster. 
These  claims  seemed  all  to  be  proved  by  the  tests  made  yesterday. 
An  article  in  the  Sun  was  chosen  for  the  test.  This  was  handed 
to  a  Morse  operator,  and  while  he  sent  it  the  operator,  who  was 
afterward  to  transcribe  it,  left  the  room.  The  sending  operator 
worked  at  the  ordinary  key,  just  as  he  would  in  sending  a  message 
over  the  wire  in  the  present  Morse  system.  The  message,  how- 
ever, instead  of  going  over  the  main  wire,  was  sent  only  over  a  local 
office  wire.  It  was  received  in  a  machine,  which  was,  to  all  intents 
and  purposes,  like  the  registering  machine  which  every  operator 
us<  d  forty  years  ago,  before  men  had  learned  to  read  by  sound. 
The  dots  and  dashes  were  reproduced  on  a  strip  of  paper,  each 
being  raised  above  the  surface  of  the  paper  by  a  point  which  pressed 
that  part  of  the  paper  into  a  groove  in  a  wheel  which  the  paper 
passed  over.  Instead  of  producing  a  single  line  of  these  impres- 
sions, there  were  three  points  which  worked  side  by  side  and  left 
three  sets  of  duplicate  impressions.  The  duplication  is  merely  to 
insure  accuracy.  The  message  was  telegraphed  in  this  part  of  the 
process  at  the  ordinary  rate  of  speed. 

Now  came  the  second  process — the  transmission  over  the  main 
wire.  The  transmitting  instrument  and  the  recording  instrument. 
at  opposite  ends   of  the   wire,   were   set    going  :it    a    speed   three   times 

as  great  as  that  of  the  hand  operator.  The  strip  of  paper  with 
the  message  imprinted  on  it  was  started  through  the  transmitter. 
and  the  recorder  went  rattling  away  at  a  rate  which  no  man  could 
read,  but  every  impression  was  afterward  Found  to  be  an  exact 
duplicate  of  those  in  the  strip  going  through  the  transmitter.    \\  lien 


VI  PHILLIPS  S    MORSE  AUTOMATIC  TELEGRAPH 

this  process  was  completed  the  paper  from  the  recorder  was 
brought  over  to  the  transmitter,  and  the  latter  machine  was  slowed 
down  again  to  a  speed  equal  to  that  of  ordinary  telegraphing.  The 
transmitter  was  now  assumed  to  be  only  an  office  machine  run  upon 
an  office  circuit  and  entirely  separate  from  the  line  wire,  as  would 
be  the  case  in  the  third  process — that  of  taking  the  message  from 
the  transmitted  copy  and  turning  it  into  ordinary  writing.  A  type- 
writer who  could  read  telegraphy  by  sound  sat  in  front  of  his  ma- 
chine and  as  soon  as  the  strip  was  started  through  the  transmitter 
he  began  to  print  out  the  message.  When  he  had  finished,  the 
typewritten  copy  was  compared  with  the  original  article  in  the 
Sun  and  found  to  be  exactly  correct. 

In  practice,  the  manner  in  which  the  system  would  be  used  is 
this:  Since  the  transmitter  is  able  to  send  three  times  as  many 
messages  in  a  given  time  as  a  single  operator  can  send  or  receive, 
there  would  be  three  operators  in  each  office  to  each  wire.  In  the 
sending  office  these  operators  would  be  kept  busy  making  the  tape 
copies  of  the  messages  by  ticking  them  off  on  office  recorders. 
As  fast  as  their  messages  were  ready  they  would  be  run  through 
the  transmitter,  which  would  reproduce  them  at  the  triple  speed  at 
the  other  end  of  the  wire.  There  the  three  other  operators  would 
each  take  a  part  of  the  messages  and  transcribe  them.  There  is 
absolutely  no  loss  of  time. 


SOME    PLAIN   TALKS   ABOUT   MACHINE    TELEGRAPHING 

(By  Walter  P.  Phillips) 

Until  the  extremely  simple  and  effective  system  known  as 
Phillips's  Morse  Automatic  Telegraph  was  brought  out,  practically 
all  interest  in  automatic  telegraphs  was  dead  both  here  and  in 
Europe;  but  here,  especially,  the  conditions  of  business  are  such 
that  what  is  wanted  is  speed  and  accuracy  rather  than  cheapness 
and  a  possible  attendant  delay  in  the  handling  of  business,  with  the 
probabilities  strongly  favoring  the  making  of  errors  the  moment 
the  telegraph  business  gets  out  of  the  hands  of  the  experts  in  manual 
telegraphy. 

Every  once  in  a  while  there  has  been  a  ripple  of  excitement  in  the 
public  mind  over  the  announcement  of  an  invention  of  a  new  auto- 
matic telegraph  which  would  transmit  matter  at  the  rate  of  three 
thousand  words  per  minute.  But  this  has  been  done  again  and 
again.  As  long  ago  as  when  Grant  was  President,  Edison  had 
devised  an  improvement  in  the  Little  Automatic  Telegraph  which 


PHILLIPS  S    MORSE   AUTOMATIC  TELEGRAPH  Vll 

made  it  practicable  to  send  through  one  of  Grant's  messages 
to  Congress  in  three  or  four  minutes.  One  of  the  great  difficulties 
in  the  way  of  mechanical  transmission  at  a  high  rate  of  speed  has 
been  that  the  static  charge  which  remains  in  the  wire  after  every 
pulsation  tends  to  "tail"  the  signals,  or,  in  other  words,  make  them 
run  into  an  uninterrupted  line.  This  particular  difficulty  has  been 
overcome  of  late  by  sending  copper  and  zinc  into  the  line  alternately 
— that  is,  sending  one  pulsation  from  the  negative  pole  of  the  bat- 
tery and  the  next  one  from  the  positive  pole,  and  so  on  alternately. 
This  is  a  very  effective  way  of  destroying  the  "static"  and  secures 
clear  signals,  provided  the  wire  is  perfectly  clear,  a  condition  that 
does  not  often  obtain,  however.  But  in  the  days  of  the  Little- 
Edison  System  the  "static"  was  got  out  of  the  case  by  an  ingenious 
contrivance  of  Edison's  invention  called  a  "shunt."  This  was  cut 
in  when  the  automatic  system  was  in  use,  and  was  cut  out  when  the 
line  was  being  used  for  regular  Morse. 

The  late  William  B.  Somerville,  who  was  at  the  head  of  the  Na- 
tional Associated  Press,  was  anxious  on  one  occasion  to  beat  the 
New  York  Associated  Press  on  one  of  Grant's  messages,  and  his 
Washington  representative  made  an  arrangement  with  General  Bab- 
cock  to  permit  a  small  regiment  of  perforators  to  visit  the  White 
House  the  Sunday  before  the  message  was  to  be  sent  to  Congress 
and  have  access  to  the  sacred  document  which  was  protected  by 
the  perforators  leaving  the  result  of  their  labors  in  the  possession 
of  one  of  the  White  House  clerks,  who  locked  up  the  miles  of 
perforated  tape  in  a  safe  with  the  various  parts  of  the  message, 
which  had  been  cut  up  and  divided  among  the  perforators  for 
them  to  puncture.  The  next  day  at  noon  when  the  message  was 
presented  to  Congress,  the  tape  was  delivered  to  the  Atlantic  and 
Pacific  Telegraph  Company,  and  shortly  after  the  whole  barrel  of 
it  had  been  run  through  the  machine.  In  New  York  a  great 
amount  of  tape  had  been  wet  and  chemically  treated  and  was  ready 
for  the  signals.  Washington  asked  in  Morse  if  New  York  was 
ready,  and  the  chief  operator,  glancing  at  his  corps  of  special  as- 
sistants, answered  cheerily  that  New  York  was  ready,  and  f"i"  three 
minutes  the  tape  came  pouring  out  of  the  machine  at  the  rate  of 
a  mile  a  minute.  All  but  a  few  yards  of  the  specially  prepared 
tape  was  used,  but  enough  was  enough  and  New  York  gave  "(  >.  K," 
and  the  matter  was  divided  among  the  twenty  or  thirty  waiting 
copyists,  and  they  proceeded  to  attempt  its  translation. 

"What  have  you  got,  Bill?"  asked  one,  adding,  "I  have  nothing 
but  a  straight  line." 


Vlll  PHILLIPS  S    MORSE   AUTOMATIC   TELEGRAPH 

Bill  looked  at  his  and  so  did  the  others,  and  they  found  there 
was  nothing  but  a  straight  line  from  beginning  to  end.  They  could  not 
have  it  repeated  because  they  had  no  tape  ready,  and  it  takes  time  in 
which  to  prepare  it,  so  there  was  nothing  left  for  the  National  Asso- 
ciated Press  to  do  but  cry  peccavi  and  borrow  a  copy  of  the  message 
in  New  York  from  its  bigger  brother,  the  New  York  Associated 
Press,  which  had  already  received  it  on  seven  Morse  wires,  and 
when  it  had  the  message  the  National  Associated  Press  proceeded 
to  distribute  it  by  Morse,  about  an  hour  behind  time,  to  the  papers 
served  by  it.  In  his  excitement  the  chief  operator  had  omitted  to 
cut  in  the  "shunt,"  and  the  whole  thing  "tailed." 

But  even  assuming  that  the  signals  can  be  got  over  the  line  safely 
by  the  protective  device  of  using  a  "shunt,"  or  sending  what  are 
known  as  "reversals"  from  opposing  poles  of  the  battery,  what 
good  can  be  subserved  by  telegraphing  at  the  rate  of  three  thousand 
words  a  minute?  Who  knows  of  anybody  who  is  going  to  furnish 
that  amount  of  matter?  Business  does  not  reach  the  telegraph 
company  in  volumes,  but  it  comes  stringing  in  all  day  long,  a  few 
messages  at  a  time,  taken  in  at  thousands  of  offices  throughout 
the  country,  and  it  is  practically  impossible  to  handle  this  great 
aggregation  of  business  promptly  excepting  by  hand,  precisely  as 
it  was  handled  in  the  first  days  of  the  telegraph.  Automatic  sys- 
tems have  come  and  gone,  and  they  have  departed  chiefly  for  the 
reason  that  they  were  not  susceptible  of  being  adapted  to  the 
existing  situation.  They  were  thought  out  by  men  whose  knowl- 
edge of  the  requirements  of  the  telegraph  business  was  of  a  most 
rudimentary  character.  They  started  with  the  indisputable  proposi- 
tion that  the  capacity  of  the  wires  to  carry  pulsations  is  as  infinite 
as  the  capability  of  the  atmosphere  to  convey  sound  waves.  And 
then  they  jumped  to  the  conclusion  that  what  was  needed  was  a 
system  that  would  carry  between  New  York  and  great  cities  an  un- 
limited volume  of  business  on  a  single  wire.  Mr.  Little,  whose  auto- 
matic system  Edison  made  practical  as  early  as  1875,  had  this  idea 
and  saw  it  exploded,  but  at  regular  intervals  since  then  Foote  and 
Randall,  Craig,  Anderson,  Leggo,  and  Rogers  have  come  for- 
ward with  automatic  devices  intended  to  serve  a  purpose  which 
was  non-existent  and  with  as  fanatical  a  belief  in  their  plans  as  if 
similar  ones  had  never  been  presented  before  and  uniformly  rejected. 
The  only  real  progress  that  has  been  made  to  the  end  of  increasing 
the  capacity  of  wires  has  been  made,  first  by  Moses  G.  Farmer 
and  J.  B.  Stearns,  who  perfected  the  duplex,  and  by  Edison  and 
his  followers,  who  have  brought  the  quadruplex  to  a  state  of  almost 


ASA  B.  SUESMAN 
Junior  partner  in  the  law  firm  of  Suesman  &  Suesman,  of  Providence,  R.  I.,  was 
formerly  connected  with  The  United  Press  in  Chicago  as  operator  and  news  editor. 
He  graduated  from  the  Chicago  College  of  Law  in  1896,  and  was  admitted  that  yeai 
to  the  bar  of  Illinois.  Manv  of  our  matrices  are  made  by  Mr.  Suet-man  and  his 
brother  Walter. 


PHILLIPS  S    MORSE   AUTO  MATH-   TELEGRAPH  IX 

absolute  perfection.  The  duplex  made  one  wire  equal  to  two,  and 
the  qnaduplex  gives  four  circuits  out  of  every  wire  on  which  it  is 
employed. 

Before  the  invention  of  Phillips's  Morse  Automatic  Telegraph  no 
machine  telegraph  had  cut  any  permanent  figure  in  the  matter  of 
telegraphic  transmission.  The  faster  the  systems  have  been,  the 
slower  they  have  proved,  because  of  the  initial  delay  incident  to 
perforating  the  tape  from  which  the  signals  are  transmitted;  and 
for  the  reason  that  when  more  than  a  few  hundred  words  per 
minute  are  transmitted  no  record  by  mechanism  is  possible,  and  the 
introduction  of  a  chemically  prepared  tape  upon  which  the  signals 
are  made  visible  by  a  discoloration  caused  by  the  action  of  the 
electric  current  upon  that  tape  has  always  been  fatal  to  accuracy 
and  the  unfailing  source  of  delays  ranging  from  ten  minutes  to 
ten  hours.  The  slowest  automatic  system  in  use  in  the  world  is 
the  Wheatstone,  and  even  that  does  not  find  much  favor  in  America. 
A  most  patient  and  strenuous  effort  has  been  made  to  introduce  it 
here,  and  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars  have  been  spent  to  that 
end  by  the  Western  Union  Telegraph  Company.  As  beautiful  as 
a  chronometer  in  all  its  parts,  the  product  of  one  of  the  most  exact 
and  persevering  minds  that  has  figured  in  our  time  in  the  realm  of 
electrical  science,  the  Wheatstone  system  is  yet  a  failure  in  America, 
and  for  the  reason  that  we  do  business  at  such  high  pressure  that 
the  cry  of  the  commercial  world  is  for  celerity,  not  in  transmission, 
but  in  delivery. 

Not  many  of  the  men  in  the  telegraph  business  have  failed  to 
reach  the  conclusion  that  in  the  use  of  all  automatic  systems  about 
as  much  is  wasted  at  the  bung  as  is  saved  at  the  spigot.  To  re- 
peat myself  a  little,  let  me  say  again  that  where  perforation  is  a 
condition  precedent  to  transmitting  the  matter  to  be  sent,  there  is 
an  initial  delay  from  which  there  is  no  possible  escape,  and  where 
a  great  amount  of  matter  is  received  in  a  very  short  time,  some- 
body's message  must  come  in  at  the  end,  and,  with  the  perversity 
of  mundane  things,  it  is  generally  the  most  important  thing  in  the 
budget  that  is  the  one  to  be  the  most  seriously  delayed.  As  I 
have  said,  the  Wheatstone  automatic  is  the  best  of  all,  for  it  docs 
not  take  us  into  an  objectionable  intimacy  with  wet  paper  chem 
ically  prepared. 

Returning  to  the  subject  of  Phillips's  Morse  Automatic  System, 

it  is  bound  to  succeed  because   it   attempts   SO  little.     The  aim   ol    its 
inventors    has    been    to    make    every    single    wire    and    every    side    ol 

any  multiplex  system  three  or  four  times  as  useful  as  at   present, 


X  PHILLIPS  S    MORSE   AUTOMATIC   TELEGRAPH 

and  to  continue  to  do  the  work  "by  sound."  That  is  a  great  point 
in  our  favor.  The  prejudice  of  Morse  men  against  reading  from 
tape,  by  sight,  would  upset  a  train  of  Pullman  cars,  to  say  nothing 
of  a  new  automatic  system.  In  the  ten  years  or  more  that  the 
Wheatstone  has  been  in  operation  in  America,  no  Morse  men  have 
ever  conspicuously  associated  themselves  with  it.  and  even  the  public 
knows  the  difference  between  the  messages  that  come  to  them  by 
Morse  and  on  the  Wheatstone,  and  is  dead  against  the  latter.  All 
operators  make  errors,  but  the  kind  of  mistakes  the  badly  drilled 
and  irresponsible  outside  elements  that  have  come  into  the  telegraph 
business  as  one  of  the  features  of  the  Wheatstone's  introduction 
are  different  and  more  appalling  than  anything  that  was  ever  seen 
outside  of  a  newspaper  composing  room,  when  an  absent-minded 
"comp"  had  been  struggling  with  a  bad  piece  of  copy.  The  people 
outside  of  the  telegraph  offices  have  no  adequate  idea  of  the  kind 
of  stuff  telegraphers  have  to  handle.  Illegible  penmanship  and 
phonetic  spelling  characterize  much  of  the  business  handed  in  by 
the  intelligent  community,  rendering  it  necessary  that  the  telegraph 
operator  should  be  raised  in  the  profession  from  a  boy  or  a  girl. 
A  French-Canadian  once  telegraphed  thus:  "Meat  my  colt  on  mon 
frayed."  If  that  had  been  sent  by  the  automatic  class  of  people 
it  would  have  been  delivered  as  written,  but  the  intelligence  of 
Morse  men  is  proverbial.  To  start  with,  the  operator  knew  that 
the  man  by  whom  the  message  was  written  was  a  dealer  in  salt, 
and  he  saw  that  by  "colt"  the  writer  meant  "salt,"  and  so  the  mes- 
sage was  sent  and  delivered  correctly,  thus:  "Meet  my  salt  on 
morning  freight."  The  message  was  handed  in  at  a  small  office 
in  Canada  where  the  operator  knew  everybody  in  town,  and  he  had 
the  nerve  to  take  chances.  But  your  automatic  people  take  no 
chances.  If  that  message  had  gone  by  that  system  the  Canadian's 
correspondent  would  have  been  hunting  Toronto  all  over  for  a 
colt,  while  the  salt  on  the  flat  cars  standing  out  in  the  rain  perhaps 
would  have  been  disappearing,  betimes,  and  growing  beautifully 
less.  This  is  not  an  exaggerated  case — thousands  similar  to  it  are 
of  daily  occurrence.  The  public  never  dreams  of  how  much  is  done 
by  the  unknown  and  uncomplaining  knight  of  the  key  to  straighten 
out  the  same  kind  of  errors  that  are  constantly  occurring  in  the 
superscriptions  of  the  thousands  of  letters  that  find  their  way  to 
the  dead  letter  office  in  Washington. 

We  have,  I  believe,  worked  out  a  knotty  problem  and  made 
feasible  a  system  that  is  sure  to  succeed  where  all  automatics  have 
failed,   not   excepting  the  Wheatstone.     Our   experiments   between 


PHILLIPS  S    MORSE  AUTOMATIC  TELEGRAPH  xi 

Washington  and  New  York  over  the  United  Press  wires  convinced 
us  that  we  have  a  winner.  The  system  is  simple  and  calls  for  no 
paraphernalia,  outside  of  an  embosser  and  transmitter,  that  is  not 
used  in  regular  Morse  telegraphing.  It  employs  Morse  talent  ex- 
clusively, and  we  do  not  depart  from  Morse  methods — hand  send 
ing  and  receiving  by  sound.  Therefore  we  know  our  "ground" — 
no  pun  intended — and  instead  of  having  from  the  Morse  men  that 
passive  co-operation,  which  is  rather  worse  than  open  hostility,  we 
expect  to  have  them  with  us,  heart  and  soul,  because  we  have  some- 
thing that  is  in  their  interest  and  not  opposed  to  it.  The  promoters 
of  machine  telegraphy  have  demonstrated  the  feasibility  of  their 
schemes  theoretically  on  the  assumption  that  their  systems  could 
be  worked  by  those  whom  nature  intended  to  be  hewers  of  wood 
and  drawers  of  water  and  whose  valuable  services  could  be  had 
for  about  $4  a  week.  That  is  their  first  false  step;  there  is  the  false 
premise  that  logically  entails  false  conclusions.  We,  on  the  other 
hand,  put  a  premium,  and  not  a  discount,  on  intelligence,  expert- 
ness,  willingness  and  all  the  admirable  qualities  that  characterize 
the  first-class  operator  of  to-day. 


SOME  ANSWERS  TO  CORRESPONDENTS 

{By  Walter  P.  Phillips) 

To  a  beginner  who  inquires  about  learning  to  read  by  sound: 
There  are  two  ways  of  learning  to  read  by  sound.  The  old  way, 
now  practically  obsolete,  was  to  have  the  letters  very  slowly  made 
and  at  long  intervals  apart,  and  painfully  guessed  out  by  a  combined 
effort  of  the  intellect  and  the  imagination.  But  the  letters  when 
made  slowly  and  separately  do  not  sound  as  they  do  when  placed 
in  close  connection  and  as  you  must  eventually  learn  to  read  them. 
Fancy  learning  a  piece  of  music,  by  ear,  from  having  each  note 
played  slowly  at  intervals  of  ten  seconds.  The  true  way  to  learn 
to  read  by  sound  is  to  "follow"  regular  and  moderate  sending  from 
a  written  or  printed  slip.  In  this  way  the  letters  reach  the  ear  as 
they  will  always  sound,  and  it  is  not  difficult  with  the  matter  before 
you  that  is  being  ticked  out,  to  "follow."  You  may  sometimes  lose 
the  place,  but  in  a  short  time  you  will  not  only  find  it  easy  to  keep 
track  of.what  the  instrument  is  saying,  but.  little  by  little,  you  will 
discover  that  you  can  read  without  the  printed  copy  before  you, 
however  necessary  such  an  aid  may  be  at  tin-  beginning. 

Replying  to  a  young  man  who  asks  my  advice  as  to  how  he  can 
become  a  good  sender: 


Xll  PHILLIPS  S   MORSE  AUTOMATIC  TELEGRAPH 

There  is  only  one  way  to  learn  to  send  the  Morse  characters,  and 
this  is  by  means  of  that  unflagging  practice  by  which  the  violin, 
the  piano,  the  typewriter,  and  kindred  instruments  and  machines  are 
conquered.  The  alphabet,  with  which,  together  with  the  numerals 
and  punctuation  marks,  you  must  become  familiar  at  the  outset, 
is  composed  entirely  of  linear  characters,  formed  of  dots  and  dashes, 
and  by  combinations  of  the  two,  supplemented  in  the  letters  c,  o, 
r,  y  and  z,  and  in  the  symbol  &,  with  spaces.  A  dot  is  a  quick,  firm 
depression  of  the  key,  and  a  dash  is  a  longer  depression — twice  or 
thrice  as  long.  A  space  is  made  by  leaving  the  key  open  for  a  second, 
more  or  less.  At  the  beginning  of  your  practice  you  are  certain 
to  make  staggering  dots;  you  will  make  some  of  your  dashes  short 
and  others  long,  and  even  in  spacing,  your  work  will  be  susceptible 
of  improvement.  But  as  you  proceed  with  your  practice,  your  hand 
will  gradually  become  obedient  to  your  brain,  your  ear  will  become 
educated  to  detect  inaccuracies  or  uncertainties  in  the  style  of 
manipulation,  and  continued  practice  will  end  in  bringing  about  a 
smooth  and  graceful  touch,  precisely  the  same  as  practice  on  the 
piano  improves  the  touch,  sharpens  the  faculties  and  gradually  de- 
velops pleasing  players  from  most  unpromising  beginners.  The 
proposition  that  "practice  makes  perfect"  has  gone  unquestioned  for 
ages,  and  of  no  achievement  can  it  be  said  with  greater  truth  than  of 
learning  to  send  the  Morse  characters  on  a  telegraph  key.  When  a 
perfect  control  over  the  hand  has  been  gained,  the  student  will  find 
that  his  ear  will  persuade  him  to  a  regular  gait,  and  to  making  his 
dots,  dashes  and  spaces  with  a  degree  of  nicety  that  will  give  his 
manipulation  a  musical,  rhythmic  sound  as  fascinating  to  the  educated 
ear  as  any  other  "concord  of  sweet  sounds,"  whether  produced  by 
musical  instruments  or  issuing  from  the  throats  of  gifted  singers. 
This  result  cannot  be  looked  for  at  first,  however.  The  prosaic  oc- 
cupation of  making  the  right  number  of  dots  in  an  h,  a  p,  or  a  figure 
6;  of  giving  the  dashes  in  a  w  the  correct  length,  lest  it  may  sound 
like  a  u  if  the  first  dash  is  shortened,  or  like  an  f  if  the  last  one  is  cut 
short — this  occupation,  with  its  attendant  anxiety  as  to  spacing, 
spelling,  etc.,  will  stand  in  the  way  at  first  of  acquiring  a  style,  but 
the  latter  will  come  with  practice,  just  as  the  faculty  of  writing 
captivating  English  came  to  Macauley,  Thackeray  and  Dickens,  and 
has  come  to  thousands  of  others  who  were  once  toddlers,  learning 
very  slowly  at  their  teachers'  knees,  and  no  doubt  with  open-eyed 
amazement,  that  the  first  letter  in  the  alphabet  was  A  and  that  Z 
stood  for  Zebra.  It  is  not  difficult  to  learn  to  telegraph,  and  the  ac- 
complishment is  a  useful  one.     But  serious  practice  is  indispensable. 


PHILLIPS "S   MORSE   AUTOMATIC   TELEGRAPH  X1U 

This  is  to  make  my  meaning  clear  to  a  railroad  operator  who 
seeks  for  information: 

Yes,  you  are  right  in  saying  you  guess  I  have  some  notions  of 
my  own  about  the  best  way  to  learn  telegraphy.  Any  man  who 
accomplishes  any  one  object  is  entitled  to  have  opinions,  and  I 
have  mine.  I  have  perfected  an  automatic  system  which  may  or  may 
not  be  introduced  by  the  telegraph  companies.  That  remains  to  be 
seen;  but  whether  it  ever  should  be  so  introduced  or  not,  there  can 
be  no  shadow  of  doubt  about  its  advantages  as  an  automatic  teacher. 
In  making  my  matrices  I  have  the  pick  of  all  the  renowned  sender-. 
many  of  whom  were  formerly  my  own  employees  in  the  service  ol 
The  United  Press,  and  you  recognize,  of  course,  that  if  men  are 
taught  to  read  Morse  sending  that  is  of  a  high  order  of  merit,  they 
will  naturally  incline  toward  doing  the  thing  as  they  hear  it.  when 
they  come  to  practice  sending.  A  conspicuous  advantage  of  our 
machines  over  human  senders  is  that  you  can  run  the  machines 
twenty-four  hours  per  diem,  if  you  wish  to,  and  they  never  get  tired 
or  fall  off  in  the  quality  of  their  product.  If  you  are  a  fairly  expert 
operator  and  wish  to  perfect  yourself  in  receiving  on  a  typewriter 
at  a  high  rate  of  speed,  nothing  could  be  devised  to  compare  with 
my  machines.  They  can  be  stopped  at  will,  and  the  speed  can  be 
varied  from  a  very  moderate  gait  up  to  as  high  a  pace  as  can  be 
achieved  by  the  fastest  senders  in  the  world,  the  Morse,  whether 
it  be  sent  slowly  or  fast,  being  of  the  highest  grade.  I  am  positive 
that  telegraphy,  in  its  highest  development,  can  be  taught  at  home 
better  than  it  has  ever  been  taught  in  offices,  and  that  the  new 
school  of  operators,  thus  taught,  will  rank  higher  than  those  who 
acquire  the  art,  as  I  did  forty  years  ago — by  hanging  around  and 
picking  up  my  education,  haphazard,  and  having  to  unlearn  in  the 
concluding  years  of  apprenticeship  a  great  deal  that  was  learned  in 
the  first  year.  1  have  lived  with  this  problem  a  great  many  years, 
and  am  confident  that  my  conclusions  are  unassailable. 

If  a  man  learns  to  send  on  a  railroad  wire,  he  will  be  contaminated. 
as  are  the  dyer's  hands,  of  which  Shakespeare  speaks,  ami  if  the 
sending  is  generally  bad  he  will  acquire  a  style  that  resembles  the 
flight  of  a  drove  of  rats  over  a  tin  roof.  On  the  other  hand,  any 
beginner  who  hears  nothing  but  finished  writing  will  acquire  some 
thing  as  nearly  approximate  to  it  as  he  can  achieve.  <  >f  course  it  is 
not  in  all  men  to  send  well  any  more  than  it  is  in  certain  women 
to  reach  a  measure  of  perfection  on  the  piano  such  as  Essipoff  has 
acquired  on  that  instrument,  or  such  a  degree  oi  kill  as  Ysaye  has 
attained  in  playing  the  violin.      Bui   an   object   lesson   is  none  the  les> 


XIV  PHILLIPS  S   MORSE   AUTOMATIC   TELEGRAPH 

valuable  and  I  know  what  I  am  talking  about  when  I  say  that  the 
slips  that  we  furnish  are  an  important  and  never-ending  exhibition 
of  how  the  thing  should  be  done.  I  saw  the  influence  of  this  in  The 
United  Press,  where  those  who  learned  the  business  on  our  wires 
became  stars.  I  contend  that  if  the  same  men  had  learned  on  the 
Jigwater  railroad  they  would  have  fallen  into  many  bad  habits.  If 
the  modern  railroad  operators  were  as  generous  in  respect  of  prac- 
ticing and  striving  to  emulate  the  work  of  men  of  known  ability  as 
they  are  with  their  dots,  we  should  occasionally  hear  the  letter  p, 
a  six  or  an  eight  made  in  a  way  not  calculated  to  force  us  to  tear  our 
hair  and  rend  our  garments.  Personally  I  object  to  being  sent  over 
anybody's  wires  as  W  6.  66illi6s,  and  that  is  the  way  my  name  often 
gets  mutilated  in  these  degenerate  days. 

It  was  held  by  certain  persons,  years  ago,  that  the  aim  and  purpose 
of  language  was  to  make  one's  self  understood.  The  followers  of 
these  people  have  gradually  been  convinced  that  to  make  one's  self 
understood  is  one  of  the  very  least  of  all  the  ways  in  which  language 
can  be  utilized.  The  orators,  the  poets,  the  novelists  and  the  dramat- 
ists have  knocked  that  idea  in  the  head.  In  the  same  way,  certain 
operators  who  make  t  p  for  an  8,  and  whose  dotted  letters  make  them 
the  laughing  stock  of  their  associates  hold  to  the  opinion  that  accu- 
racy in  respect  to  dots  is  quite  unimportant.  They  will  live  to  see  their 
error.  The  time  will  come  when  operators  of  this  kind  will  be  paid 
$5,  $io  even  $15  less  per  month  than  their  more  careful  and  con- 
scientious brethren.  They  are  like  the  gentleman  who  formerly  built 
boats  by  "the  rule  of  thumb,"  and  spoke  slightingly  of  Burgess  and 
Herreshoff,  and  of  Fife  and  Watson.  But  where  are  the  rule-of- 
thumb  men  to-day?  Every  boat  that  has  won  an  international,  or  in 
any  way  an  important  race,  in  the  last  twenty  years,  has  been 
designed  by  the  scientific  men,  who  have  made  the  modeling  of 
racing  machines  their  constant  study.  Where  are  the  rule-of-thumb 
men?  I  will  tell  you  how  to  find  them.  Ask  of  the  dockmen  at 
Elizabethport;  ask  of  the  tug-boat  captains  who  their  pilots  are; 
ask  at  the  rope  walks  who  the  night  watchman  is.  Do  this  and  you 
will  learn  all  that  is  known  of  a  scornful,  ignorant  and  fat-witted 
gentry,  who  once  ruled  and  flourished,  but  who  have  now  passed 
out,  simply  because  they  were  too  dull  and  dense  to  advance  with  the 
ever-widening  scope  of  scientific  information,  and  for  that  reason 
they  have  returned  to  their  native  obscurity,  unmourned,  unhonored 
and  unsung  and  they  will  stay  there  until  the  angel  of  death  touches 
them  gently  with  his  icy  finger  and  they  pass  onward  to  the  great 
beyond. 


Some  of  the 

WEINY-PHILLIPS 
DEVICES 


Their  Morse  Automatic 
Repeater 


Their  Resonator 

Used  in  Connection  with  the  Remington 

Typewriter 


Their  Impulse  Countei 


PHILLIPS  S    MORSE   AUTOMATIC   TELEGRAPH  XV 


PRICES: 

Type  A,  with  one  roll  of  tape  containing  1,000  words $35-00 

Type  M.  The  reproducing  part  of  this  machine  is  put  up 
in  a  beautiful  cabinet  and  is  operated  by  a  duplex  tandem 
motor  of  recent  invention.  It  will  run,  at  each  winding, 
from  one  to  two  hours,  according  to  the  speed  given  it. 
Price  with  four  rolls  of  tape  containing  1,000  words  each..       50.00 

Type  M.  The  recording  part  of  this  machine  is  put  up  in  the 
same  way  as  the  preceding.  It  will  run  an  equal  length 
of  time 65.00 

Type  M  complete,  comprising  both  reproducer  and  recorder, 
when  desired  for  use  in  country  office  or  for  linotype 
work    108 .  00 

Type  F.  The  reproducing  part  of  this  machine  is  the  Morse 
Automatic  proper.  It  is  fitted  up  with  the  duplex  tandem 
spring  motor 60 .  00 

Type  F.  The  recording  part  of  this  machine  fitted  with  tan- 
dem motor 75-00 

Type   F  complete,   for  fast   work   and   comprising  both   the 

reproducer  and  recorder 125.00 

Type  F-E.  The  reproducing  and  recording  parts  of  this  machine, 
separately  and  in  combination,  sell  for  the  same  as  Type  F.  It  has 
an  electric  motor  adaptable  to  both  the  incandescent  and  the  stor- 
age battery   currents. 

Additional  matrices  containing  1,000  words  for  types  A  and  M,  50 
cents  each. 

In  ordering  matrices  say  whether  straight  sending  is  wanted  or 
code  sending,  and  whether  in  the  Morse  or  Continental  alphabet. 
If  the  language  is  not  specified  it  will  be  taken  for  granted  that 
English  matrices  are  wanted. 


^^■fe- 


*w 


WILLIS  J.   COOK 


BY  WAY  OF  INTRODUCTION. 


It  is  more  than  twenty  years  ago  that  some 
of  the  sketehes  printed  herewith  were  written. 
They  were  contributed  over  the  pen  mime  of 
John  Oakum  to  a  telegraphic  paper  which  long 
since  ceased  publication — "  The  Telegrapher." 
In  ]  87(3  they  were  gathered  up  with  some  others 
and  issued  under  the  title  of  "  Oakum  Pickings," 
a  book  that  has  been  out  of  print  for  years, 
although  I  dare  say  there  are  stray  copies  of  it 
still  in  existence.  I  had  expected  others  would 
follow  my  lead  and  give  the  telegraphic  fraternity 
a  real  literature  by  this  time;  but  it  would  seem 
that  such  of  the  operators  as  have  the  writing 
faculty  and  take  up  literary  work,  give  their  at- 
tention to  serious  matters,  such  as  the  important 
developments  in  the  realm  of  electrical  endeavor, 
or  they  go  into  newspaper  work  and  write  on 
lines  widely  separated  from    telegraphy  and   the 


10  BY    WAY    OF    INTRODUCTION. 

affairs  of  those  gallant  soldiers  of  the  wire  whom 
they  have  left  behind  them. 

Much  to  my  surprise,  I  have  thus  far  stood 
almost  alone  in  respect  of  anything  approaching 
imaginative  work,  so  far  as  our  profession  is  con- 
cerned; and  it  is  because  an  interest  in  Jim  Law- 
less, Tip  McCloskey,  Cap  De  Costa  and  their 
friends  still  survive  after  twenty  years  that  I  take 
the  liberty  of  bringing  them  forward  once  more. 
With  them  are  some  new  people  who  had  not 
sprung  into  being  when  "  Oakum  Pickings  "  was 
published,  but  whose  appearance  now,  T  am  cer- 
tain, will  not  be  taken  amiss.  Perhaps  I  should 
more  properly  say  their  reappearance,  for  Pop 
Donaldson,  Narcissa,  and  several  of  the  others 
have  already  appeared  in  the  telegraphic  prints. 

The  dedicating  of  this  new  edition  of  my 
sketches  to  the  late  Willis  J.  Cook,  the  original 
of  the  sketch,  entitled  "  Bif,"  gives  me  an 
opportunity  to  say  that  I  was  very  deeply  in- 
debted to  him  in  all  my  earlier  work.  No  one 
who  looks  at  his  picture,  even  if  he  did  not  know 
this  most  charming  man  in  life,  can  fail  to  per- 
ceive that  here  was  a  rare  soul,  full  of  sugges- 
tions and  enthusiasms,  and  appreciative   to  his 


BY    WAY    OF   INTRODUCTION.  1  1 

finger-tips.  We  had  been  wearied  with  a  story 
of  somebody's  impossible  feats  while  we  were 
taking  an  early  morning  lunch,  and  Willis  said 
to  me  as  we  journeyed  home  in  a  Third  Avenue 
car  and  the  gray-eyed  dawn  was  breaking:  "  Did 
you  ever  hear  such  rubbish?  Can't  something  be 
done  to  cork  such  fellows  up?"  I  thought  it 
over,  and  wrote  "  Jim  Lawless,"  and  submitted 
it  to  him.  He  gave  it  his  unqualified  approval, 
and  it  was  duly  printed.  It  had  a  very  good 
effect,  and  one  day  Willis  came  to  me,  and  said: 
"  There  is  another  duck,  worse  than  any  of  the 
breed  of  bores  who  have  their  Jim  Lawlesses,  and 
that  is  the  fellow  who  tells  what  lie  can  do.  The 
creators  of  the  Lawless  clan  are  catholic  in  their 
tastes,  and  while  they  lie  all  right,  they  are  not 
themselves  the  objects  of  their  own  glorifying. 
Just  touch  up  this  other  fellow  for  luck."  So 
I  followed  "Jim  Lawless"  with  a  sketch  of  an 
extremely  disagreeable  fellow,  whom  we  called 
"  Posie  Van  Dusen. " 

At  this  juncture,  having  done  all  that  I  felt 
called  upon  to  do  in  the  missionary  line,  I  pro- 
duced "  Tip  McCloskey,"  who  became  such  a 
favorite  that  I  wrote  "  An  Autumn  Episode  "  hi 


12  BY    WAY    OF   INTRODUCTION. 

self-defense,  and  to  supply  the  demand  for  more 
about  McCloskey.  Then  Cap  De  Costa  was 
added.  All  of  these  people  are  composite  in 
character,  as  is  also  Bif,  although  more  of 
that  sketch  than  of  any  of  the  others  is  true  as 
applies  to  the  personation  of  any  one  man.  The 
sketch  in  which  I  drew  on  him  so  liberally  did 
not  appear  until  long  after  he  had  gone  West; 
but  when  he  saw  it,  he  was  "very  philosophical 
about  it,  and  didn't  mind  the  brief  period  of 
notoriety  that  it  gave  him.  He  wrote  to  me 
from  Salt  Lake  City  that,  having  encouraged  me 
to  make  literary  material  of  so  many  of  his  con- 
temporaries, he  didn't  see  that  there  was  any 
cause  for  him  to  claim  exemption  from  the 
operation  of  a  general  rule.  "  And,  by  the 
way,"  he  added,  "  that  maroon-colored  fakir, 
who  used  to  run  the  elevator  at  195  Broadway,  is 
out  here  ranching."  Although  I  did  not  know 
who  the  "maroon-colored  fakir ':  was,  I  saw 
from  the  spirited  change  of  subject  that  my  old 
friend  had  taken  no  offense  at  what  I  had  done. 

The  telegraphic  profession  lost  one  of  its 
brightest  ornaments  when  Willis  J.  Cook  passed 
onward.     I  have  heard  all  the  fast  senders  that 


r.Y    WAY   OF   INTRODUCTION".  13 

have  attracted  attention  in  the  past  thirty-five 
years,  and,  while  many  were  faster  than  he  was, 
none  of  them  was  quite  as  musical.  All  the 
lightness  and  brightness  in  his  nature,  which 
made  his  companionship  so  captivating,  seemed 
to  shine  out  in  his  sending.  lie  was  a  man  of 
the  world,  but  not  a  worldly  man.  Everything 
interested  him,  and  he  interested  everybody.  No 
man  I  ever  knew  more  fully  lived  up  to  the 
philosophy  of  a  writer  who  says:  "  Life  is  an 
ecstasy,  and  nothing  else  is  really  living.  And 
to  achieve  this  state  requires  new  elements  all  the 
time.  It  may  not  always  require  change  of  locu- 
tion;  material  change  is  of  very  little  importance 
compared  to  that  mental  variety  which  is  the 
secret  of  advancing  life.  To  lay  hold  on  new 
ideas,  to  climb  to  new  heights,  is  the  change 
which  is  growth  and  development,  and  which 
brings  one  into  touch  with  new  atmospheres." 

Walter  P.  Phillips. 
Bridgeport,  Conn.,  Oct.  15,  1900. 


OLD  JIM  LAWLESS. 


OLD  JIM  LAWLESS. 


Poor  old  boy!  the  Western  pines  ware  over  his 
grave  now.  He  has  been  dead  some  time.  I  do 
not  remember  just  what  took  him  from  us,  but 
as  he  was  "  Jim  "  to  everybody,  and  prone  to  go 
on  "  jams"  in  spite  of  all  opposition,  I  have  a 
suspicion  that  it  was  a  combination  of  the  two. 
He  did  not  work  at  the  business  for  several  years 
prior  to  his  decease;  certain  disturbances  with 
telegraph  managers  and  railroad  superintendents 
had  rendered  him  unpopular  with  employers,  and 
he  had  officiated  in  a  Cheyenne  restaurant — with 
bar  attached — up  to  within  a  short  time  previous 
to  his  death.  But  neither  in  this  field  of  enter- 
prise was  he  entirely  successful.  On  the  Chi- 
cago, Burlington  and  Quincy,  an  attempt,  while 
train  dispatcher,  to  pass  two  trains  on  the  same 
track,  had  worked  his  ruin.  Dropping  into  a 
beery  slumber,   which    lasted    until    day-break, 

(17) 


18  OLD   JBI   LAWLESS. 

while  be  was  attending  a  button  repeater  at 
Corinne,  had  resulted  in  a  similar  disaster.  His 
troubles  with  trains  and  repeaters  ended,  how- 
ever, when  he  quitted  the  service,  and  he  thought 
he  had  gravitated  to  his  level  in  the  "  hash  and 
jig-water  business,"  as  he  facetiously  termed  it, 
and  he  confidently  looked  forward  to  less 
turbulent  scenes  and  experiences.  But  one  day 
the  proprietor,  who  had  just  refitted  the  saloon  in 
gorgeous  shape,  went  to  Omaha,  and  left  Jim 
''chief  in  charge."  The  next  day  several  kegs 
of  new  ale  arrived,  and  Jim  was  busy  all  day 
getting  them  in.  In  the  evening  his  friends 
found  him  unusually  genial  and  generous,  and 
they  unanimously  responded  in  person  to  his 
cheery  invitation  to  "  Drinkwymeboys — whasser- 
ods. "  In  attempting  to  tap  one  of  the  new 
arrivals,  the  bung  flew  out  of  the  keg,  and  for  a 
moment  the  air  was  fragrant  with  its  contents. 
All  that  new  paper,  the  mirror  and  its  drapery 
of  brocade  and  tassels,  the  pictures  over  the  bar, 
and  everything  around  wept  tears  of  hops  and 
malt.  Jim  gave  the  newly  garnished  room  one 
sorrowful  look,  and  it  sobered  him  instantly. 
Then,  turning  to  his  friends,  he  said:    "  Good- 


OLD   JIM    LAWLESS.  19 

bye,  boys;  there  goes  another  situation,''  and, 
like  the  "  Tall  Alcalde," 

"  He  strode  him  out  of  the  adobe  door, 
And  ne'er  was  seen  or  heard  of  more," 

by  Cheyenne  eyes  or  ears,  at  least.  There  Mas  a 
legend  floating  about  Reel  Buttes  in  1870,  which 
assigned  him  to  the  position  of  a  water-drawer  for 
the  railroad  at  a  station  near  there.  I  can  not 
vouch  for  the  truth  of  it,  but  certain  it  is  he 
dropped  out  of  telegraphing  some  years  ago,  and 
died  engaged  in  some  lowlier  pursuit  than  ours. 

But  Jim  Lawless  was  the  biggest  kind  of  a 
telegrapher.  I've  seen  the  whole  of  them  work; 
know  them  all  by  heart,  and  there  never  was  a 
man  who  snatched  brass  that  could  touch  him. 
I'll  tell  you  what  he  did  in  Savannah,  (la.  Old 
Pop  Donaldson  was  in  Charleston,  and  in  those 
times  could  average  about  eighty-three  words  a 
minute.  lie  got  Jim  the  first  night  Lawless 
struck  the  town,  and  Jim  had  been  around  the 
block,  and  was  so  drunk  the  boys  bad  to  prop 
him  up  in  his  chair;  but  he  sat  there  and  took 
three  hundred  and  eleven  messages  without  a 
"break,"   besides  a    short   "special'     for    the 


20  OLD   JIM   LAWLESS. 

Savannah  News.  Donaldson  did  his  level  best. 
And  the  copy  Jim  took!  gilt-edged,  copper- plate; 
couldn't  be  "  rushed  "  out  of  it  anyhow.  And 
talk  about  copying  behind!  Why,  that  night, 
when  Pop  said,  "  N  M — U'r  no  slouch. — G  N.," 
old  man  Jim  was  three  social  messages,  a  Gov- 
ernment "cipher/'  and  the  short  "special" 
behind.  The  boys  all  stood  around  and  watched 
him,  and  after  he  gave  "  0.  K."  and  signed,  he 
went  right  on  and  copied  out  all  that  stuff  he  had 
laid  back  there  in  his  head.  Jim  used  to  take 
"  State  Press  "  at  Albany  a  long  time  ago,  when 
they  sent  it  abbreviated.  Most  of  the  men  took 
it  by  registers,  but  Jim  just  took  it  by  sound,  and 
wrote  it  out  in  full.  The  editors  never  saw  such 
copy,  and  the  proprietors  of  the  paper  offered 
him  $3,000  a  year  to  take  charge  of  their  sub- 
scription-books. One  night  when  he  was  taking 
"  State,"  Syracuse  called  up  and  wanted  to  know 
if  he  could  deliver  a  message  to  the  Chief  of 
Police.  Jim  told  him  "yes,"  and  took  it,  and 
told  New  York  to  go  ahead.  Then  he  jumped 
up  and  walked  over  to  the  police  station,  stopped 
into  a  little  "dive"  there  is  right  there  by  the 
Delavan  House,    got  a   "  schooner "   and    two 


OLD    JIM    LAWLESS.  21 

"  ponies  ''  of  beer,  and  came  back  to  the  office, 
and  he  "  sat  in "  and  went  to  copying,  anil 
caught  up  to  Xew  York  before  he  got  "  30," 
though  he  fell  four  hundred  words  behind  while 
he  was  gone.  These  are  only  a  few  of  the  stories 
I  can  tell  you  about  Jim  Lawless,  but  these  ought 
to  suffice.  I  never  encounter  a  crowd  of  operators 
but  some  one  will  discourse  about  Hank  Some- 
body, Sandy  This,  or  Kick  That,  and  their 
appalling  achievements,  and  as  I  know  for  a 
positive  certainty  that  Jim  Lawless  was  the  best 
operator  that  ever  struck  a  key,  1  can  not  refrain 
from  giving  one  or  two  of  his  feats  publicity. 


POSIE  VAN  DUSEN. 


POSIE  VAX  DUSEN. 


I  have  a  remarkable  memory  for  faces,  and 
though  it  was  ten  good  years  ago  that  I  first  saw 
Posie  Van  Dusen,  and  I  had  never  seen  him,  and 
had  scarcely  heard  of  him  since,  I  recognized  him 
instantly  when  I  saw  him  again  last  fall. 

I  don't  know  why  he  is  entitled  "Posie.'5 
There  is  nothing  about  him  suggesting  the 
exhalation  of  flowers.  His  nose  is  the  only 
blossoming  feature  about  him,  but  I  have  no 
reason  to  think  he  derived  his  fragrant  sobriquet 
from  that.  It  must  have  been  in  the  summer  of 
18G3  or  18G4  that  I  first  saw  Posie.  It  was  the 
occasion  of  my  first  visit  to  New  York.  I  was  a 
boy  then,  in  a  New  England  office,  with  a  very 
slight  knowledge  of  dashes  and  dots,  and  having 
rendered  a  railroad  superintendent  a  service,  he 
offered  me  a  pass  to  New  York.  My  sensations 
on  debarking  in  the  wonderful  metropolis  were 


26  P0S1E    VAN    DUSEN". 

much,  I  fancy,  as  were  yours,  my  reader.  I  was 
captivated  with  everything  I  saw,  and  was 
astounded  with  the  length  and  breadth  of  the 
swarming  island.  To  me  at  that  time  the  poet's 
bitter  denunciation — 

"  False  land  of  promise,  paved  with  gold 
That  turns  to  iron  'neatb  the  blistering  feet, 
Lured  by  that  rustic  lie  to  pace  her  streets! 
That  loadstone  rock  whereon  adventure  splits 
And  wrecked  ambition  starves;" 

to  me,  I  say,  this  had  no  unusual  significance.  I 
saw  only  tbe  bright  side  of  the  picture,  and  I 
tripped  gayly  along  the  route  of  the  telegraph 
poles,  vainly  expecting  to  reach  the  office  by  that 
means.  When  I  had  tired  of  this  I  used  my 
tongue,  and  ere  long  I  stood  before  the  great 
"  No.  145,"  of  which  I  had  heard  and  thought 
so  much.  My  cousin  was  an  operator,  and  in 
due  time  I  was  ushered  into  the  operating-room 
of  the  American  Company.  He  wTas  in  good 
standing;  he  has  since  risen  to  a  position  of 
trust;  his  name  is  identified  now  with  the  inven- 
tion of  "  duplex  ''  and  "  quads  "  innumerable, 
and  I  find  him,  moreover,  des])ite  his  great 
modesty,  a   man  whose   knowledge  of  electrical 


POSIE    VAX    DUSEN". 

science  is  generally  respected.  He  introduced  me 
to  the  manager,  Mr.  J.  C.  Hinchman,  to  Mr. 
M.  S.  Roberts,  general  assistant,  to  Mr.  "William 
Clam,  chief  operator,  and  to  Mr.  Dixon  F. 
Marks,  night  manager,  also  to  operators  in  con- 
siderable number;  and  finally  prefacing  my 
presentation  with  the  remark,  "  Of  course  you 
want  to  know  all  the  celebrities, "  he  brought  me 
to  where  two  young  men,  apparently  cast  in  the 
Swivellerian  mold,  were  standing,  and  said: 
"  This  is  Tip  McCloskey,  Mr.  Oakum,  and  this, 
Posie  Van  Dusen.  You  have  heard  of  them 
both."  Indeed  I  had,  and  I  felt  much  the  same 
in  their  presence  as  I  remember  to  have  felt 
several  years  later,  when  I  stood  face  to  face 
with  Charles  Dickens,  and  tried  to  comprehend 
that  he  was  the  man  who  had  created  Cuttle, 
Copperfield,  Agnes,  Dame  Durden,  and  the  host 
whose  hopes  and  experiences  are  a  part  of  my 
own  life — the  sunniest  part  of  it,  need  I  add? 

The  next  morning,  as  I  stood  waiting  U>r  the 
arrival  of  my  chaperon  and  relative,  who  was 
not  due  until  8:30,  I  saw  the  little  army  of 
operators  file  into  the  side  door.  I  was  a  little 
shaver,  with  a  round,  rosy  face,  like  hundred 


28  POSIE    TAN    DUSEN. 

other  boys,  and,  I  dare  say,  they  did  not  recog- 
nize me.  Certainly  none  of  them  honored  me 
with  a  bow— not  even  with  the  ghost  of  a  wink- 
to  betoken  they  had  ever  seen  me  before.  I  had 
not  learned  then  how  slight  a  claim  a  boy's  intro- 
duction to  a  busy  New  Yorker  entails.  At  the 
end  of  the  list,  as  invariably  happened,  came  Tip 
McCloskey.  His  appearance,  even  in  the  dis- 
tance, was  disheveled,  but  there  was  a  devil- 
may-care  air  about  him  as  he  strutted  along, 
which  was  not  without  its  element  of  smartness. 
I  turned  my  face  away;  I  had  been  snubbed  by 
everybody,  and  I  would  not  give  this  man  a 
chance  to  wound  my  foolish  sensibilities.  But 
Tip  accosted  me  with  a  kindness  in  his  tones  that 
I  have  never  forgotten.  He  shook  hands  with  me 
and  called  me  his  dear  boy,  and,  leaning  up 
against  a  little  iron  railing  with  as  much  non- 
chalance as  if  he  had  been  fifteen  minutes  ahead 
of  time,  instead  of  fifteen  behind,  he  proceeded 
to  inquire  how  old  I  was,  how  long  I  had  been 
learning,  and  assured  me  I  was  doing  first  rate. 

"  Stick  to  it,"  said  he;  "  it  can't  be  accom- 
plished with  a  lep  ;  it  requires  patience  and  prac- 
tice.    Don't  get  discouraged;  the  war  is  creating 


POSIE    VAX    DUSE3ST.  29 

a  big  demand  for  operators,  and  before  it  is  over, 
I  shall  expect  to  hear  of  you  as  one  of  the  best 
operators  around.  And  let  me  give  you  a  little 
advice,  my  boy/'  he  continued,  quite  seriously, 
"  don't  go  too  much  on  your  reputation.  I  have 
got  a  big  reputation  myself,  and  I  must  sustain 
it.  There  is  no  such  thing  for  me  as  starting 
anew;  but  you  can  learn  wisdom  from  my  ex- 
perience. Try  to  become  a  good,  reliable  oper- 
ator; steer  clear  of  liquor,  and  you  will  win. 
And  remember,  above  everything,  that  it  is  as 
impossible  to  do  telegraphic  work  correctly,  with- 
out occasional  interrogation  in  doubtful  instances, 
as  it  would  be  to  print  a  book  or  newspaper  cor- 
rectly before  the  proof-reader  improved  it  by  his 
emendations." 

With  this  he  bid  me  "good-morning,"  and 
shaking  hands,  again  disappeared  within.  I 
walked  on  air  that  morning.  All  the  encourage- 
ment I  had  ever  felt  was  not  a  tenth  of  that 
which  this  seemingly  abandoned  Bohemian  had 
voluntarily  excited.  Some  one  says  that  every 
man  has  the  ashes  of  a  poet  in  him.  I  am  sure 
Tip  McCloskey,  long  wandering  through  this  land, 
and  now  an  exile  in  Mexico,  has  the  ashes  of  a 


30  POSIE    VAN    DUSEN. 

gentleman  in  him.  "What  a  pity  that  fortuitous 
circumstances,  home  influences,  or  an  inherent 
will  had  not  guided  the  warm  instincts  of  his 
soul,  and  developed  them  into  something  wor- 
thier; how  sad  to  contemplate  a  man  wrecked  on 
the  waste  waters  of  dissolution,  from  a  mere  lack 
of  something  to  change  his  course! 

But  I  am  forgetting  Van  Dusen.  Before  I  left 
New  York,  I  learned  from  Tip  that  Posie  had 
been  discharged.  The  story  was  a  brief  one. 
Van  Dusen,  Tip,  and  Cap  De  Costa,  another  tele- 
graphic knight,  had  been  up  into  Westchester 
County  the  week  before  to  a  ball.  Van  Dusen 
went  to  play  the  violin,  on  which  he  performed 
quite  creditably,  "  though  he  got  a  message 
going  to  14  Milk  Street  as  1470  K  Street,"  said 
Tip,  as  he  related  the  details.  "  Posie  fiddled," 
said  Tip,  "  as  long  as  he  could,  and  when  he  had 
become  not  only  too  full  for  utterance,  but  too 
full  to  scrape  the  strings,  the  people  piled  us  into 
the  wagon  and  started  us  home.  It  was  awfully 
dark,  and  most  of  us  were  asleep  for  a  very  long 
time;  but  Posie  woke  up  at  length  and  wanted 
me  to  stop  the  horse;  said  he  thought  his 
Cremona  was  knocking  around  in  the  bottom  of 


POSIE    TAN    DUSKX.  31 

the  wagon.  So  I  reined  in  the  steed,  and  Posie 
got  out  to  make  an  examination.  I  went  right 
to  sleep,  and  I  guess  Cap  wasn't  awake  at  all. 
Anyway,  we  fetched  up  at  the  stable  next  morn- 
ing, and  Posie  wasn't  in.  lie  says  now  that  I 
drove  off  and  left  him  in  the  woods  twelve  miles 
from  Harlem.  He  was  five  days  footing  it  into 
New  York,  and  when  he  got  here,  J.  0.  II.  had 
his  paper  sealed,  signed,  and  read}-  for  delivery." 

I  wasn't  as  sorry  as  I  ought  to  have  been.  I 
didn't  like  Van  Dusen  particularly.  Perhaps  I 
was  prejudiced  by  Tip,  whom  I  had  once  heard 
tell  Posie:  "  Yes,  you  are  a  big  operator — let  you 
tell  it." 

Last  summer  I  embarked  for  Boston  by  the 
Shore  Line  train,  leaving  Forty-second  Street  at 
nine  p.  M.  There  were  not  many  in  the  cars — a 
young  operator  from  Watertown,  N.  Y.,  going 
to  New  London  to  work  for  the  opposition,  a 
couple  of  dry-goods  drummers,  one  or  two  mis- 
cellaneous entities,  and  myself.  Just  as  the  train 
was  starting,  a  chap,  whom  I  at  once  recognized 
as  Van  Dusen,  entered  the  ear.  He  was  redolent 
of  vinous  compounds,  and  before  we  had  fairly 
steamed  into  Harlem  he  had  edged  himself  into 


32  POSIE    VAN    DUSEN. 

the  conversation  proceeding  between  the  two 
drummers.  One  of  them,  had  said  something 
about  his  "  circuit/'  and  that  was  sufficient  to 
set  Van  Dusen's  tongue  to  running  like  mad. 
He  worked  the  first  wire  that  was  ever  worked 
from  New  Orleans  to  New  York,  he  did;  he  took 
the  first  message  that  was  ever  sent  across  the 
plains — that's  what  kind  of  a  man  he  was.  But 
his  auditors  were  not  so  much  interested  in  tele- 
graphics  as  they  might  have  been,  and  they  in- 
continently snubbed  the  man  of  dots  and  dashes, 
and  he  was  obliged  at  last  to  address  his  conver- 
sation to  the  boy.  After  awhile  he  got  a  railroad 
flask,  and  he  offered  some  of  it  to  everybody. 
There  were  no  takers  except  himself.  He  had 
talked  shop  just  enough  to  raise  the  curiosity  of 
the  youngster  from  Water  town,  and  the  lad  came 
over  and  sat  with  him  on  the  seat  behind  me.  I 
couldn't  help  hearing  much  of  what  was  said, 
and  I  thanked  my  stars  when  I  began  to  feel 
drowsy  just  after  leaving  New  Haven.  The 
train,  however,  was  a  lightning  express,  and  the 
abrupt  curves  and  uneven  track  swayed  the  smok- 
ing-car, and  I  woke  up  at  intervals  of  ten  or 
fifteen    minutes,    I    should    judge.      By    some 


POSIE    VAX    DUSEST.  33 

singular  fatality  my  waking  moments  seemed  to 
come  just  as  Van  Dusen  was  beginning  to  relate 
the  history  of  some  new  adventure.  As  nearly 
as  I  can  recall  it,  the  panorama  shifted  after  this 
manner: 

"  Sorry  you  won't  take  a  drink,  young  fellow. 
The  whisky  in  this  bottle  is  fourteen  years  old. 
I  want  to  give  you  a  little  of  my  experience — 
some  heavy  work  I  did  in  Cincinnati.  I  took 
fourteen  thousand  words  of  press — " 

Then  I  fell  asleep,  and  woke  up  to  this  refrain: 

"  Sorry  you  won't  take  a  drink,  young  fellow. 
The  whisky  in  this  bottle  is  sixteen  years  old.  I 
want  to  give  you  a  little  of  my  experience — some 
heavy  work  I  did  in  Xew  Orleans.  I  took  three 
hundred  and  thirtv-one  messages  in  two  hours 
and  a  half — " 

Again,  when  the  car  disturbed  my  nap,  I 
caught: 

"  Sorry  you  won't  take  a  drink,  young  fellow. 

The  whisky  in    this   bottle  is  eighteen  years  old. 

I  want  to  give  you  a  little  of  my  experience — 

some  heavy  work  I  did  in  Corinne.     Business  had 

been  accumulating  in  Omaha  twelve  days.     Old 

-Jim    Lawless    was    working    there    then — fastest 
2 


34  POSIE    VAN    DUSEN. 

sender  ever  lived.  I  just  told  him  to  leave  out 
everything,  and  go  in.  Received,  from  him  seven- 
teen hours  and.  thirty  seconds,  and  took  sixteen 
hundred,  messages  without  a — " 

"  Why,  that  is  nearly  a  hundred  an  hour," 
ejaculated  the  youngster,  amazed. 

"I  don't  know  anything  about  that.  We 
never  counted  'em  to  see  what  time  we  made," 
said  Posie,  in  return;  and  then  I  fell  asleep  again. 
I  couldn't  pretend  to  tell  you  how  many  times  I 
came  to  the  surface,  as  it  were,  and  heard  the 
story  about  that  aged  whisky  and  the  heavy  work. 
The  more  he  talked  about  them  the  older  the 
whisky  got,  until  its  one  hundred  and  fourteenth 
year  was  reached,  and  I  don't  know  how  many 
more,  and  the  work  became  heavier  as  the  dust 
and  cobwebs  gathered  upon  that  inspiring  flask  of 
spirits.  Finally  I  fell  into  a  deep  slumber, 
which  lasted  until  the  train  went  crashing 
through  Hyde  Park  and  Jamaica  Plain.  I 
looked  behind  me  for  Van  Dusen  as  we  came  in 
sight  of  Boston's  domes,  but  he  was  gone, 
whither  I  knew  not.  It  was  a  beautiful  morn- 
ing, and  the  birds  were  singing  sweetly  in  the 
trees   as   I  staggered  across   the  Common   more 


POSIE    TAX    DUSEN.  35 

asleep  than  awake.  Somehow  there  seemed  to 
me  to  be  a  story  of  whisky  and  heavy  work  per- 
meating the  tones  of  the  feathered  songsters;  but 
from  away  over  on  a  hill-side,  where  the  branches 
were  waving  in  the  summer  wind  of  the  early 
morning,  there  came  the  tones  of  a  sweeter 
singer  than  all  the  rest.  Above  the  din  of  the 
many  its  blithe  notes  rang  out  sharp  and  clear, 
and  it  seemed  to  sing — possibly  I  dreamed  all 
this,  but  I  remember  it  as  a  reality — it  seemed  to 
sing  those  lines  of  Young's: 

"  We  risj  in  glory  as  we  sink  in  pride; 
Where  boasting  ends1.,  there  dignity  begins. " 


LITTLE  TIP  McCLOSKEY. 


LITTLE  TIP  McCLOSKEY. 


<•'  W 


You  remember  little  old  Tip  McCloskcy? 
He  passed  through  here  yesterday  en  route  to 
Mexico.  He  has  grown  old  since  I  saw  Jiim 
before,  and  they  tell  me  he  is  a  '  little  off '  on  his 
working,  and  that  the  nice  copy  he  used  to  put 
up  has  got  to  be  a  trifle  rocky.  Whisky  has  been 
playing  fast  and  loose  with  his  nerves,  I  fancy, 
and  his  palmiest  days,  telegraphically  speaking, 


are  over." 


1  extract  the  above  from  a  private  letter  bear- 
ing date  of  New  Orleans,  March  6th,  1874.  So 
little  Tip  has  come  to  the  surface  again,  after  all 
these  months  in  which  his  friends  have  been  won- 
dering if  he  was  alive.  Of  course  I  remember 
him.  Everybody  remembers  him.  Ten  years 
ago  it  was  no  small  affront  to  the  telegraphic 
profession  in  general  not  to  know  Tip  McCloskey. 
Long  before  I  had  carried  my  last  message  and 


40  LITTLE    TIP    M'CLOSKEY. 

been  promoted  to  the  position  of  operator  in  a 
way  office,    I   had    learned    the  history  of    his 
achievements    by  heart.       I    should    be  almost 
ashamed  to-clay  to  tell  you  how  much  I  revered 
that  man  long  before  I  ever  saw  him.     No  rapt 
listener  to  the  enchanting  stories  of  "  Sinbad," 
'  Aladdin/'    or   any   of   the   others    with  which 
Scheherazade  beguiled  the  Arabic  ruler  and  his 
attendants  through  the  fleeting  hours  of  those  one 
thousand  and  one  nights,  ever  paid  more  faithful 
attention  to  the  clever  wife  than  I  to  those  who 
made  little  Tip's  exploits  the  burden  of  their  song. 
I  installed  him  in  my  boyish  heart  as  a  man  fit  to 
rank   with   Aramis   or   Athos,    with   Porthos  or 
D'Artagan,    and    the   genius  of   Dumas  has  not 
clothed    the    "  Three    Guardsmen "    and    their 
Gascon  mate  with  braver  laurels  than  those  with 
which  I  crowned  my  hero,  or  attributed  to  them 
greater  or  more  numerous  virtues  than  those  with 
which  I  formed  a  halo  to  crown  Tip's  curly  head. 
The  worthy  Mr.  Tip  was  generally  known  as  a 
man  who  never  ''broke,"  and  he  traveled,  got 
trusted,  borrowed  money,  and  obtained  new  situa- 
tions  in   spite   of    frequent  dismissals,   on    this 
reputation.     It  was  he  who  received  Buchanan's 


LITTLE    TIP    M'CLOSKEY.  11 

message  at  Worcester,  Mass.  It  came  through  a 
button  repeater  at  Providence.  Tip  afterward 
made  his  boast  that  he  was  the  only  man  in  the 
New  England  States  who  took  the  whole  message 
without  a  "  break/"  and  I  think  lie  was.  The 
auburn-haired  operator  who  coined  the  message 
at  Providence  said  that  "Worcester  was  accident- 
ally cut  off  in  the  middle  of  that  official  document 
for  fifteen  minutes,  and  if  Tiji  got  the  whole  mes- 
sage, he  of  the  carroty  sconce  was  a  clam,  that's 
all.  I  will  not  discuss  the  merit  of  this  difference 
of  opinion;  it  is  a  trivial  matter. 

In  Atlanta,  Ga.,  Tip  made  a  wager  that  he 
could  walk  from  his  instrument  to  the  out- 
door,  where  he  was  to  be  met  by  a  hoy  from  a 
neighboring  restaurant  with  a  gin  sour  on  a 
waiter,  drink  the  "  medicine,"  and  resume  his 
work  without  interrupting  the  sender — and  he  did 
it.  The  Atlanta  paper  said,  in  an  editorial  para- 
graph, two  clays  later:  "  Our  article  of  yesterday, 
on  the  indiscretions  of  J.  C.  Lamont,  would  have 
been  characterized  by  less  spirit  had  we  known 
him  to  be  a  relative  of  the  late  Henry  Clay.  The 
Associated  Press  dispatch,  on  which  our  article 
was  based,  stated  distinctly  that   Lamont  was  a 


4%  LITTLE    TIP    M'CLOSKET. 

nephew  of  old  Dan  Webster,  of  Massachusetts." 
The  other  papers  in  that  locality,  whose  "  press  " 
was  taken  on  the  same  wire,  had  it  Henry  Clay; 
but  Tip's  reputation  saved  him.  There  is  no 
doubt  in  my  mind  that  the  rest  of  the  men  on 
that  wire  were  a  set  of  unmitigated  plugs  and 
guessers. 

Tip  worked  the  old  National  wire  at  New  York 
in  1803.  This  was  a  great  circuit  in  its  day,  and 
the  amount  of  business  sent  via  Pittsburg  was 
enormous.  Owing  to  an  inordinate  appetite  for 
dramatic  performances,  he  whiled  the  most  of  his 
evenings  away  at  the  Bowery  Theater,  and 
because  of  this,  and  a  habit  of  indulging  in 
"  revelry  by  night/'  after  the  entertainment,  it 
was  usually  late  before  he  sought  his  couch.  As 
sleepiness  is  a  natural  sequence  of  unrest,  and  as 
ten  or  fifteen  "  horns  "  of  beer  a  day  do  not 
conduce  to  wakefulness  under  these  circum- 
stances, Tip  was  generally  drowsy;  and  whenever 
he  was  "  clear  "  he  laid  his  head  on  the  table  and 
went  to  sleep.  The  office  boys,  by  whom  he  was 
regarded  as  a  sort  of  demi-god,  manifested  their 
interest  in  his  welfare  by  always  being  on  the 
alert  for  calls.     When  they  heard  Pittsburg  call- 


LITTLE    TIP    mYi.OSKEY.  [S 

ing  they  aroused  Tip  from  his  slumber,  lie 
would  opeu  the  key,  stare  about  sleepily  for  a 
moment,  and  then  command  his  friend  at  "G 
to  "let  'em  come  and  cut  'em  all  to  bits. " 
Then,  to  the  ail  miration  of  all  about,  he  would 
sit  and  copy  message  after  message  in  a  beauti- 
fully flowing  chirography,  oftentimes  earning  on 
a  lively  conversation  with  his  companions.  And 
he  didn't  "break''  in  seventeen  months.  lint, 
there  were  bigoted  citizens  of  New  York  who  con- 
spired against  him.     One  illustration  will  suffice 

Dr.  Janvier  received  a  message  from  his  wife, 
stating  that  "  Mr.  Sage  has  caved  and  is  satis- 
fied." Now,  I  maintain  that  if  Mr.  Sage  hail 
caved,  he  ought  to  have  been  satisfied.  But  not 
so  with  Janvier,  lie  demanded  a  repetition,  and 
the  telegram  read:  "  Message  received  and  is 
satisfactory."  I  have  no  ]iatience  with  your 
modern  Galens,  and  I  never  doubted  for  a  mo- 
ment that  Janvier  was  prejudiced. 

The  occasion  of  the  memorable  Army  of  the 
Kepublic  celebration  in  Boston,  in  L868,  found 
Tip  a  night  operator  at  Titusville,  Pa.  It  was 
on  that  night  he  demonstrated  to  a  coterie  of 
friends  the  feasibility  of  reciting  "  Casabianca  " 


44  LITTLE    TIP    M'CLOSKEY. 

and  receiving  "press"  simultaneously.  The 
next  morning  the  Journal  announced  in  its  tele- 
graphic columns  that  "  Post  No.  1  was  com- 
manded by  an  Irishman  from  New  Bedford;"  and 
the  New  Bedford  Standard  hastened,  a  day  or 
two  later,  to  copy  the  dispatch,  and  explain  that 
Post  No.  1  was  really  commanded  by  A.  N. 
Cushman,  from  New  Bedford.  It  added,  more- 
over, that  Mr.  Cushman  was  less  a  Milesian  than 
the  telegraph.  This  was  evidently  a  fling  at 
Tip's  nationality,  and  I  have  never  ceased  to 
despise  the  carping  nature  of  a  newspaper  that 
would  make  such  an  observation. 

When  the  Pacific  Bailroad  was  opened,  Tip  and 
Jim  Lawless  joined  the  numerous  company,  who, 
pinning  their  faith  on  the  star  of  empire,  fol- 
lowed it  across  the  Missouri,  through  the  land  of 
sage  brush  and  alkali,  and  beyond  the  snow- 
capped heights  of  the  Sierras.  I  never  heard  of 
McCloskey  but  twice  during  the  whole  Western 
tour  and  his  sojourning  on  the  Pacific  coast.  He 
was  put  off  a  train,  and  came  sauntering  into 
the  office  at  Wasatch,  in  Utah,  one  morning,  and 
depositing  on  the  counter  an  old  enameled  cloth 
satchel  tied  up  with  a  piece  of  line  wire,  he  said 


LITTLE    TIP    M'CLOSKEY.  45 

to  the  operator:  "  Just  you  keep  your  eye  skinned 
for  that  trunk.,  George,  and  I'll  go  out  and  lie 
down.-"  The  satchel  was  empty;  that  was 
obvious  at  the  first  glance.  The  operator  tos 
it  on  an  adjacent  shelf  and  went  about  his  busi- 
ness. The  budding  season  ripened  into  glorious 
summer,  those  delicious  days  when  the  sun  is  up 
early  and  goes  not  down  till  late,  came  and 
went,  but  Tip  came  not.  One  afternoon,  how- 
ever, when  the  bearded  wheat  was  bending 
with  its  wealth,  and  all  nature  had  grown  mag- 
nificent in  her  abundant  harvest,  he  swaggered 
jauntily  from  an  Eastern  bound  train,  and  called 
for  his  satchel  with  an  air  indicating  that  his  ab- 
sence had  merely  extended  over  an  hour  or  two. 
He  had  not  improved  in  personal  appearance  in 
the  interval.  A  red  shirt,  a  pair  of  jean  panta- 
loons, an  old  felt  hat,  and  a  suspender  long 
separated  from  its  mate,  constituted  what 

"  Pledges  of  our  fallen  state  " 

adorned  his  person.  He  had  been  "down  to 
"Frisco,"  he  said,  "and  had  seen  trouble." 
Slowly  he  unwound  the  line  wire  from  his  shabby 
satchel,  cautiously  he   opened   its  widely  gaping 


46  LITTLE    TIP    M'CLOSKEY. 

mouth,  then  plunging  in  his  hand  and  feeling  all 
around,  he  observed,  with  considerable  emphasis: 
"  I  should  like  to  know  the  name  of  the  black- 
hearted Mormon  who  went  through  me  for  that 
red  velvet  vest."  It  was  not  without  difficulty 
that  he  was  persuaded  to  quit  Wasatch;  and  when 
he  did  shake  the  dust  of  that  polygamous  section 
from  his  honest  shoes,  he  mentioned  privately  to 
the  train  dispatcher,  as  the  train  glided  haughtily 
away,  that  probably  he  would  find  that  "  cylinder 
escapement ,:  vest  in  Omaha.  But  my  cor- 
respondent makes  no  mention  of  his  wearing  in 
New  Orleans  a  garment  resembling  the  ruby 
wine,  so  I  fear  he  never  found  it.  Perhaps  he 
goes  now  to  seek  it  in  the  land  of  the  Montezu- 
mas. 


AN  AUTUMN  EPISODE, 


AN  AUTUMN  EPISODE. 


No  pent-up  Utica  could  contract  the  powers  of 
Mr.  Tip  McCloskey.  A  man  of  his  genius  could 
scarcely  be  expected  to  confine  himself  to  any  one 
line  of  business,  or  to  any  one  locality,  and  he  did 
not.  In  a  metaphorical  sense,  he  chased  the  roe- 
buck o'er  the  plain,  but  ever  fresh  and  free 
remained.  Some  of  his  pilgrimages  were  volun- 
tary, others  were  inspired  by  circumstances  over 
which  he  had  no  control,  while  a  fitting  regard 
for  the  prejudices  of  officials  often  prompted  him 
to  surrender  lucrative  situations  with  telegraph 
companies,  and  turn  his  attention  temporarily  to 
other  pursuits.  Arriving  one  day  in  I'lainfield, 
Conn.,  he  said  something  to  the  station  agent 
about  having  had  trouble  in  getting  through  the 
Union  lines,  and  adding  that  the  walking  from 
Washington  was  rather  monotonous,  asked  for 
employment  as  a  waiter  in  the  railroad  restaurant. 

(49J 


50  AN    AUTUMN    EPISODE. 

His  appearance  was  against  him,  and  he  was  put 
off  on  the  pretext  that  there  were  no  vacancies. 
He  then  applied  for  work  to  a  master-mechanic 
who  was  superintending  the  laying  of  a  new  track 
near  by,  but  was  again  refused.  Not  at  all 
abashed,  he  returned  to  the  depot,  murmuring: 

"  More  human,  more  divine  than  we, 
In  truth,  half  human,  half  divine 
Is  woman,  when  good  stars  agree 
To  temper,  with  their  rays  benign, 
The  hour  of  her  nativity." 

Reaching  the  platform,  he  paced  up  and  down 
awhile,  and  finally  said:  "  I  wish  I  wasn't  quite 
so  unprepossessing  at  this  time;  I  would  call  in 
and  see  the  telegraph  girl.  But,  pshaw! 
'  Worth  makes  the  man,  the  want  of  it  the  fel- 
low,' Pope  says.  And  old  Polonius  said  to 
Laertes,  '  Costly  thy  habit  as  thy  purse  can 
buy — neat  but  not  gaudy.'  Egad,  that's  me. 
Costly  as  my  purse  can  buy — been  out  of  funds 
for  three  months — trunk  in  Chattanooga.  Cheer 
up,  Tip,  my  boy,  and  make  your  devoir  to  the 
lady." 

His  address  at  this  time  had  a  dash  about  it 
that  invariably  captivated  the  female  heart.     If 


AN    AUTUMN     EPISODE.  51 

one  of  the  fair  sex  met  him  during-  his  periods  of 

seediness,  and  elevated  her  sensitive  nose  at  first, 
it  mattered  little.  Given  a  hearing,  he  speedily 
dissipated  all  depreciating  thoughts  from  his 
hearers'  minds,  and  beguiled  them  to  the  last 
degree  with  tales  of  moving  accident  by  flood  and 
field,  with  bits  of  reminiscence,  telegraphic  and 
otherwise,  or  characteristic  stories  of  his  cele- 
brated peers,  all  of  whom  he  knew  personally, 
and  whose  history  he  was  wont  to  touch  upon  in 
a  manner  most  droll  and  winning. 

The  lady  operator  at  Plain  field  that  September 
afternoon  listened  to  Tip's  easy  flow  of  words, 
and  at  the  end  of  a  ten  minutes'  conversation 
through  the  little  window,  he  had  enshrouded 
himself  in  a  halo  of  glory,  which  toned  down  his 
faded  dress  and  sunburnt  features  to  a  degree 
that  gained  him  admission  to  the  office.  Once 
in,  he  insisted  on  the  operator  giving  her  entire 
attention  to  her  needle-work,  while  he  did  the 
business.  "  The  idea  of  a  robust  operator  like 
me,"  he  said,  "  sitting  here  idling  away  my  time 
when  there  is  work  to  be  done,  and  no  one  else 
but  a  lady  to  do  it,  is  absurd." 

And  she  smilingly  surrendered  her  chair  to  the 


52  AN    AUTUMN    EPISODE. 

'gentle  gentleman/-"  somehow  much  handsomer 
than  he  looked,  and  sat  and  sewed  the  afternoon 
away  in  a  little  rocker  in  the  opposite  corner. 

From  that  moment  Tip  gained  an  admirer  for 
all  time.  An  inferior  operator  herself,  his  enter- 
tainer regarded  a  perfect  sound  reader  as  a  vara 
avis,  and  when  she  had  been  to  Worcester  or 
Norwich,  and  had  seen  male  operators  receive 
press  reports,  she  had  returned  home  and  been 
despondent  for  a  week  from  thinking  what  a 
lamentable  incompetent  she  was.  But  she  had 
never  seen  any  one  in  Worcester  or  Norwich 
whose  telegraphic  ability  could  compare  with 
Tip's.  He  told  everybody  who  essayed  to  send  to 
him,  to  rush  things.  "  Trying  to  get  my  hand 
in,"  he  said.  "  Been  traveling  extensively — 
taking  views  a-foot — and  am  rusty."  Meantime, 
he  paid  the  most  knightly  attention  to  his  vis-a- 
vis. "  Talk  right  along,  my  little  friend,"  he 
would  say;  "  it  doesn't  make  the  slightest  differ- 
ence to  me,  even  if  I  am  receiving.  Got  used  to 
that  long  ago.  Learned  the  business  that  way  from 
old  Pop  Donaldson  in  Savannah,  Ga.  He's  dead 
now;  a  wonderful  operator,  and  one  of  Nature's 
noblemen.    Green  be  the  turf  above  him."     And 


AN    AUTUMN     EPISODE.  53 

the  pretty  copies  Tip  took  us  he  went  on  chatting 
and  telling  stories,,  and  the  merry  jingle  of  his 
nervous  "  i,  i,  o,  k..  Mr."  quickly  established  his 
reputation,  as  he  established  it  everywhere. 

In   many  a   bright  pair  of  feminine  eves  vou 

■/OX  J  J 

were  a  great  hero  that  afternoon,  Mr.  Tip  Mc- 
Closkey,  as  you  sat  there  relaying  New  York 
business  for  all  the  girls  on  that  Hartford  ami 
Providenoe  wire — business  which  should  have 
gone  to  Hartford  only  you  thought  it  a  hardship 
the  girls  should  call  so  long,  and  offered  to  take  it 
yourself;  but  you  were  no  hero  in  the  eyes  i  t'  the 
young  man  at  Norwich  to  whom  you  sent  that 
business  at  break-neck  speed,  to  the  infinite 
delight  of  your  fair  companion.  She  cordially 
despised  that  conceited  youngster,  who  had  gravi- 
tated from  a  country  office  to  the  "  City  on  the 
Thames,"  and  who  made  life  miserable  for  all 
who  knew  less  of  the  telegraphic  art  than  he.  It 
was  a  very  warm  afternoon,  but  you  made  it  warm- 
er in  the  vicinity  of  the  Plainfield  wire,  in  that 
Norwich  office,  than  it  was  anywhere  else  on  this 
terrestrial  globe;  and  a  certain  aspiring  operator 
went  home  that  night  with  a  very  much  smaller 
opinion    of    himself    than    he    had    entertained 


54  AN    AUTUMN    EPISODE. 

formerly.  You  yourself  admitted  that  you  had 
"  tried  to  make  it  interesting  for  him." 

Finally  tea-time  came,  and  Tip  was  invited  to 
accompany  his  new-found  lady  friend  to  the 
station  agent's  house,  where  she  boarded.  He 
was  coolly  received,  but  with  womanly  adroitness 
she  plied  him  with  questions  at  table,  and  he  had 
attentive  listeners  directly.  After  office  hours  he 
returned  to  the  house,  and  during  the  evening, 
like  Goldsmith's  travel-stained  soldier,  he  shoul- 
dered his  crutch,  figuratively  speaking,  and  told 
how  fields  were  won.  "  You  will  be  pleased  to 
give  Mr.  McCloskey  a  bed  to-night,  of  course,  Mr. 
G randy,"  said  a  persuasive  female  voice,  as  the 
clock  chimed  ten;  and  Tip  lay  down  that  night 
in  a  clean,  sweet  bed,  and  slept  as  soundly,  and 
rose  as  brisk  and  happy  next  morning,  as  if  he 
owned  the  universe. 

"  You  have  an  influential  friend  among  us,  my 
boy,"  said  Mr.  Grand  y,  during  the  forenoon. 
"  I  have  been  persuaded  to  find  something  for 
you  to  do.  She  says  your  misfortunes  can  not 
hide  the  fact  that  you  are  a  gentleman  ;md  a 
wonderful  operator." 

The  next  day  Tip   became  a  general  utility 


AN    AUTUMN"     EPISODE.  55 

man  about  the  depot,  and  at  the  end  of  his  first 
week  he  had  demonstrated  his  fitness  for  better 
work,  and  was  appointed  ticket-seller.  When  he 
left  town,  three  months  later,  he  said  gravely  to 
Mr.  Grandy:  "  Good-bye,  and  God  bless  you  all, 
particularly  my  little  operator  friend.  I  should 
die  if  I  stayed  here  longer.  I  must  have  excite- 
ment, and  1*11  find  it  among  the  military  tele- 
graphers beyond  the  Potomac.  Yet  I  feel  like 
crying  at  leaving  here.  I  have  been  more  respect- 
able the  past  three  months  than  I  ever  was  before 
in  my  life;  but  the  end  has  come — good-bye!" 
And  the  steamboat  train  for  Norwich,  with  Tip 
waving  his  handkerchief  on  the  rear  platform, 
dashed  out  of  sight,  and  Plainfield  knew  him  no 
more. 

Let  me  conclude  by  giving  one  episode  in  Tip's 
experience  as  a  ticket-seller.  His  visit  to  Plain- 
field  was  made  early  in  the  sixties,  when  postal 
currency  was  scarce  and  silver  change  at  a  pre- 
mium. Postage  stamps  were  in  general  use  for 
change  at  that  time,  and  one  day  an  inebriated 
and  quarrelsome  stranger  called  for  a  ticket  for 
Hartford,  tendering  a  bank-note.  Tip  stamped 
the  ticket,  and  counting  out  about  a  dollar  in 


56  AN    AUTUMN    EPISODE. 

postage  stamps,  pat  them  down  with  his  hand 
over  them  to  prevent  the  wind,  which  was  blow- 
ing briskly,  from  scattering  them  to  the  four 
corners  of  the  earth.  He  waited  patiently  a 
moment  for  the  purchaser  to  take  ticket  and 
stamps;  but  the  fellow  was  obstinate,  and  held 
back.  It  was  then  that  Tip  raised  his  sheltering 
hand  and  cried,  in  a  three-card-monte  voice: 
"  N-e-x-t  gentleman!"  Some  of  those  postage 
stamps  blew  back  into  the  office,  others  blew  out 
of  doors,  and  what  became  of  the  remainder  of 
them  is  still  a  mystery.  The  purchaser  finally 
succeeded  in  getting  his  ticket  and  one  three-cent 
stamp,  and  in  getting  very  angry.  Elbowing  his 
way  back  to  the  window  once  more,  he  bawled: 
"I  want  the  rest  of  my  change. "  Leveling  a 
look  at  him  which  was  intended  to  freeze  the 
marrow  in  the  fellow's  bones,  Tip  shook  his 
finger  slowly,  and  said,  in  measured  accents: 
"  Young  man,  you  have  had  your  change  once. 
Now,  if  you  don'-;  move  away  from  here,  I'll 
come  out  there  and  bust  your  crust!"  The  man 
looked  at  Tip  for  a  moment  only,  and  moved 
mournfully  away.  His  regard  for  the  safety  of 
his  "  crust  "  kept  him  away,  and  when  his  train 


AN    AUTUMN    EPISODE.  57 

arrived,  lie  was  the  first  man  to  board  it.  Ticket- 
selling;  at  Plainfield  during  the  remainder  of 
Tip's  stay  went  on  peacefully  and  without  let  or 
hinderance. 

Mr.  McCloskev  had  made  his  record. 


CAP  DE  COSTA. 


CAP  DE  COSTA. 


Those  who  read  a  previous  paper  in  this 
volume  entitled  "  Posie  Van  Dusen/'  may 
remember  that  a  gentleman  bearing  the  name  of 
Cap  De  Costa  was  incidentally  introduced.  I.  ss 
attention  was  devoted  to  him  than  to  the  others, 
because  he  had  never  performed  any  of  the  mar- 
velous feats  which  so  redounded  to  the  glory  of 
Jim  Lawless,  nor  had  he  ever  won  distinction  in 
the  peculiar  respects  in  which  it  is  vouchsafed 
that  none  but  McCloskeys  shall  achieve  victory 
and  renown:  and  yet  De  Costa  was  an  original 
in  his  way — a  genuine  ingot  in  the  mine  of 
humanity.  It  was  his  misfortune,  however,  in 
common  with  most  of  his  class,  that  the  retention 
of  lucrative  situations  is  not  compatible  with  a 
free  indulgence  in  wine  and  wassail.  Ami  thus 
it  came  to  pass,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  I860, 
that   Mr.  De  Costa  had  been   so  regularly  and 


G2  CAP    DE    COSTA. 

persistently  dismissed  from  the  service  of  the 
American  Company,  in  New  York,  as  to  render 
it  somewhat  difficult  to  persuade  managers  that 
he  deserved  a  situation. 

From  August,  1860,  until  June,  1862,  very 
little  is  known  of  the  gentleman's  history  or  his 
whereabouts.  Vague  rumors  are  still  whispered 
concerning  his  operations  during  the  period  men- 
tioned, but  the  theories  of  his  disappearance  are 
so  diverse  in  their  nature  that  unless  Mr.  De 
Costa  possessed  the  unusual  boon  of  ubiquity  he 
could  scarcely  have  filled  the  bill.  One  story 
runs  that  he  passed  the  interval  in  driving  a  mule 
team  on  some  route  having  Santa  Fe  for  its 
remoter  terminus;  another  says  he  was  engaged 
in  New  Jersey,  where  he  nourished  a  shepherd's 
staff  and  looked  after  a  flock  as  pastoral  in  their 
seeming,  no  doubt,  as  the  average  arrivals  from 
the  West,  as  seen  at  Communipaw;  while  still 
another  informant  holds  that,  at  intervals  during 
the  entire  period,  telegrajmers  seeking  relaxation 
in  a  game  of  billiards  at  the  National,  saw  some- 
times  hovering  in  a  dark  corner  a  face  mysteri- 
ously familiar,  though  changed  and  shy  of  notice, 
aid  others  dropping  in  at  Branch's  after  "  30  " 


CAP    DE    COSTA.  63 

for  a  lunch  or  some  liquid  comfort,  noticed 
that  a  figure,  which,  according  to  Mike's 
testimony,  had  been  "  hanging  over  that  chair 
and  baking  himself  all  night  in  a  comatose 
sthate/'  always  came  quickly  to  an  upright 
posture  and  disclosed  that  it  possessed  legs  and 
the  faculty  of  locomotion,  by  speedily  gliding  up 
the  steep  stairs,  and  disappearing  down  Ann  Street 
as  if  propelled  by  shame  and  humiliation. 

Bat  these  distracting  theories  of  De  Costa's 
whereabouts  do  not  alter  the  circumstance  that 
on  the  Stli  of  July,  1862,  he  appeared  in  a  ter- 
ribly demoralized  condition  at  the  office  of  a 
western  superintendent,  between  whom  and  him- 
self a  dialogue,  something  as  given  below,  is  said 
to  have  taken  place: 

"  I  hear  operators  are  skurce,'*  said  De  Costa, 
with  the  skill  of  a  diplomat.  "  Good  many  gone 
to  the  war,  and  more  going  d — n  soon.  I'm  an 
operator,  old  man,  and,  look  here — I  want  a 
job." 

■  "Indeed!"  returned  the  gentleman;  "but 
your  manner,  sir,  is  hardly  what  is  due  to  men 
in  my  position,  and  you  seem  to  have  been  drink- 
ing.    I  really  fear  we  have  no  vacan — " 


64  CAP    DE    COSTA. 

"Oh,  that's  played!"  broke  in  the  captain. 
"  I've  been  here  before.  I'm  sorry  if  I  haven't 
been  respectful;  but,  d — n  it,  man,  you  don't  seem 
to  understand  that  good  operators  are  skurce. " 
And,  as  if  in  atonement  for  anything  unfriendly  in 
his  manner,  he  squirted  a  stream  of  tobacco  juice 
in  very  inconvenient  proximity  to  the  official 
boots,  and  fell  to  whistling  "  Auld  Lang  Syne." 

What  he  said  was  true;  the  demand  for  opera- 
tors was  threatening  to  exceed  the  supply;  cir- 
culars calling  for  "sound  operators,"  to  go  into 
the  army,  were  freely  distributed,  and  telegraphic 
officials  were  well  aware  that  the  facilities  for 
handling  the  wondei fully  increasing  business  were 
likely  to  be  crippled  from  a  lack  of  operators. 
But  the  superintendent  did  not  fancy  the  manner 
of  the  applicant,  and  he  prepared  to  annihilate 
him. 

"  No,"  he  began,  "  old  acquaintance  should 
not  be  forgot,  and  with  the  record  which  you 
have,  Mr.  De  Costa,  the  company  is  not  likely,  to 
let  your  fame  pass  from  memory;  but  we  really 
don't  need  you.  We  only  want  a  few  operators 
just  now,  and  it  is  essential  that  those  should  be 
absolutely  first-class — men  capable  of  sending  a 


CAP    DE    COSTA.  G5 

message  with  one  hand  and  receiving  one  with 
the  other — who  can  work  two  wires  at  once,  so 
that—" 

"  Look  here,  cully,"  interrupted  De  Costa, 
speaking  most  confidentially — "  look  here,  cully, 
you  say  you  want  men  that  can  do  that?  Well, 
I'm  your  oyster.  You  want  to  engage  me  on  the 
spot  at  your  highest  salary." 

It  is  not  within  my  province  to  describe  the 
process  of  thought  by  which  these  two  came 
ultimately  to  agree.  De  Costa's  impudence  may 
have  awed  the  official  into  submission,  or  a  fine 
sense  of  humor  may  have  led  the  gentleman  to 
give  the  veteran  another  trial.  At  all  events,  my 
friend  of  the  military  title  found  his  way  to  the 
operating-room  that  very  afternoon,  and  was 
enrolled  on  the  list  at  the  "  highest  salary,"  as 
he  had  suggested.  During  his  stay  his  relations 
were  tolerably  pleasant,  though  some  of  his  co- 
laborers  were  taken  down  a  peg  or  two  occasion- 
ally by  his  manner  of  answering  their  inquiries. 
A  message  of  his  receiving,  containing  upward  of 
a  hundred  words,  was  once  handed  to  a  new 
operator  for  transmission  to  some  point  in  the 
East.     It  was  beautifully  written,  and  filled  the 

3 


66  CAP     DE    COSTA. 

blank  completely.  The  sender  got  on  gloriously 
until  he  reached  the  bottom,  and  then  he  was 
unable  to  see  the  check.  He  looked  for  it  at  the 
top  and  on  the  margin,  but  his  "  eager  and  ex- 
pectant gaze  "  was  each  time  disappointed.  As  a 
last  resource  he  marched  over  to  Cap's  desk,  and 
sai  (1 ,  ve  ry  d  em  u  rel  y : 

"  Mr.  De  Costa,  you  seem  to  have  omitted  the 
check  by  some — ;' 

"  Omitted  the  devil!"  responded  Cap,  a  little 
pompously,  observing  with  a  wink  at  his  inter- 
rogator: "  nice  copy,  isn't  it?"  Then  he  turned 
it  over,  and  pointing  to  the  middle  of  the  back, 
exclaimed:  "Why,  you  tow-topped  lunkhead, 
what  do  you  call  that?"  The  check  was  there  on 
the  back,  looming  up  solitary  and  alone,  like  the 
Latin  inscription  "  Hie  "  on  the  tombstone  of  the 
departed  inebriate. 

His  friends  thought  he  had  reformed,  and 
indeed  his  behavior  for  a  few  months  was  so  much 
better  than  was  expected,  that  the  position  of  all- 
night  man,  which  had  become  vacant,  was  ten- 
dered him.  The  duties  were  light,  with  hours 
from  1  a.  m.  to  8  a.  m.  As  a  general  thing  he 
took  scarcely  a  half  dozen  messages,  besides  send- 


CAP    DE    COSTA.  67 

ing  a  little  press  to  San  Francisco,  and  jogged  on 
the  even  tenor  of  his  way  as  happily  as  a  bird. 
But  there  came  a  sad,  regretful  pay-day  night 
when  Cap  met  with  a  misfortune.  lie  looked 
upon  the  wine  when  it  was  red. 

"  On  horror's  head  horrors  accumulate/'  you 
know;  so  it  was  not  surprising  that,  after  he  had 
relieved  his  men,  San  Francisco  should  offer 
a  "special."  I  fancy  that  deep  emotions  were 
working  in  the  old  boy's  breast  when  the  doleful 
information  came  bumping  across  the  plains;  but 
be  that  as  it  may,  deep  emotions  were  working  in 
several  other  breasts  next  morning.  A  special, 
which  should  have  appeared  in  the  New  York 
Tribune  that  day,  for  reasons  which  the  reader 
may  surmise,  hung  innocently  on  its  hook  in  the 
San  Francisco  office  until  long  after  the  cock's 
shrill  clarion  had  waked  the  echoes  of  the  new- 
born day. 

The  manager — or  "  Charley,"  as  the  captain 
always  called  him — by  some  strange  chance  came 
earlier  to  the  office  that  morning  than  usual,  to 
find  the  door  open,  the  fire  gone  out,  and  the 
room  vacant.  The  butt  of  a  cigar  lying  on  (he 
"  overland  "  desk  indicated  that   De   Costa  had 


G8  CAP    DE    COSTA. 

sat  pondering  there  on  his  duty,  and  the  feasi- 
bility of  his  performing  it.  The  circuit  closer  was 
open,  a  piece  of  tin,  which  Cap  always  took  with 
him  when  he  changed  his  base,  was  gone  from  the 
sounder,  and  on  a  blank  lying  loose  among  many 
others  was  written  in  pencil,  in  a  neat  chirogra- 
phy,  unmistakably  his,  the  following  laconic 
adieu: 

"  Charley, — I  works  no  more;  I  resigns. 

"Cap." 


I)e  Costa  was  a  man,  as  has  been  indicated, 
who  had  no  pronounced  scruples  about  changing 
his  base  of  operations.  He  had  no  abiding  faith 
in  the  theory  that 

"  We  may  fill  our  houses  with  rich  sculptures  and  rare 
paintings, 
But  we  can  not  buy  with  gold  the  old  associations." 

To  him  old  associations  were  not  of  particular 
importance,  and  he  never  bought  anything  with 
^old — or  currency,  even — which  he  could  pur- 
chase on  credit,  and  having  no  house,  he  filled  it 
not  with  paintings  either  rare  or  otherwise,  or 
sculptures  rich  or  poor.     In  short,  he  was  a  roll- 


CAP    DE    COSTA.  69 

ing  stone  who  gathered  no  Morse,  except  what  was 
transmitted  to  him,  but  he  gathered  that  with  an 
ease  and  grace  which  has  never  been  surpassed 
and  seldom  equaled.  The  captain  not  only 
drifted  from  the  "  rock-bound  coasts  of  Maine  to 
the  golden  sands  of  the  Pacific  "  about  once  a 
year,  but  he  also  drifted  to  and  fro  from  the 
service  of  the  American  Telegraph  Company  to 
that  of  railroad  companies,  and  was  never  hap- 
pier than  when  on  the  eve  of  transferring  his 
valuable  services  from  one  corporation  to  another. 
Sometimes,  I  regret  to  say,  his  period  of  service 
was  abruptly  terminated  by  his  employers  without 
the  formality  of  consulting  his  wishes,  and  he  was 
left  without  visible  means  of  support  for  an 
indefinite  length  of  time.  It  was  during  one  of 
these  dreary  intervals — which  weie  by  no  means 
infrequent  in  his  history — that  he  accosted  a 
knot  of  telegraphers  on  Broadway  one  evening 
and  asked  for  a  loan — a  small  one.  He  said  that 
it  was  likely  to  be  a  permanent  if  not  a  paying 
investment,  and  a  purse  of  nine  cents  was  finally 
made  up  for  his  benefit.  "  Now,  if  I  pay  my 
fare  to  Fiftieth  Street,  that  will  only  leave  me 
four  cents  for  a  beer,"  said  De  Costa,  reflectively. 


70  CAP    DE    COSTA. 

"  I'll  go  get  the  beer  first  and  trust  to  luck  to 
get  up-town  on  the  other  four  cents.  Thanks, 
gentlemen;  '  I  owe  you  one,'  as  Dr.  Ollapod 
would  say.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  my  beloved 
brethren,  I  owe  you  several.  Good-night."  His 
friends  watched  him  for  a  moment  as  he  tripped 
gayly  up  the  street,  until  he  suddenly  disappeared 
in  the  vicinity  of  a  pair  of  posts  surmounted  with 
red  lamps,  having  "  oysters  "  painted  on  them. 
Men  much  exhilarated,  loud  of  voice,  and  in- 
clined to  burst  into  discordant  song  often  came 
out  between  those  lamp-posts — an  argument 
undoubtedly  against  the  consumption  of  oysters. 
Later  the  captain  came  out  and  made  his  way  as 
dignified  as  usual  to  a  neighboring  car-stand. 
He  took  up  a  position  on  the  front  platform  of 
the  car,  and  before  it  started  had  invented  a 
story  which  he  thought  would  get  him  up  to 
Fiftieth  Street,  where  he  had  relatives,  for  four 
cents.  But  he  had  no  occasion  to  tell  it.  For 
some  unexplained  reason  the  conductor  didn't 
disturb  him,  and  at  Fiftieth  Street  De  Costa  left 
the  car  as  light-hearted  as  a  bird.  "  I'll  have  to 
celebrate  that  piece  of  good  fortune,"  he  said. 
"But   I   can't   beer   up   on   four    cents."      He 


CAP    DP    COSTA.  71 

walked  down  the  street,  however,  toward  a  lager 
beer  garden.  He  must  have  been  studying  as  he 
went,  for  as  he  approached  the  bar  he  blandly 
remarked  to  the  man  of  juleps,  smashes,  etc. : 
"  Balmy  evening,  Jack;  rather  late  home  to- 
night for  a  pious  citizen.  Must  correct  my 
habits  in  deference  to  my  early  teachings,  and 
return  home  earlier.  By  the  way,  my  friend, 
would  you  do  me  the  great  kindness  to  lend  me 
a  cent?*'  Cap  was  an  entire  stranger  to  the  bar- 
tender, but  the  request  was  so  pleasantly  made, 
the  style  of  the  applicant  so  breezy,  and  the  loan 
asked  so  small,  that  the  fellow,  though  puzzled, 
was  very  glad  to  accommodate.  "  If  you  mean 
it,  certainly,  sir,''  said  he.  "  Mean  it?"  re- 
peated Cap.  "Dol  look  like  a  man  who  would 
jest?"'  The  penny  was  handed  over  without 
further  ceremony,  and  the  captain,  fishing  his 
four  cents  out  of  his  pocket,  surmounted  them 
with  the  borrowed  one,  pushed  the  column  for- 
ward, and  said,  briskly:  "  Jack,  give  me  a  beer." 
While  he  leisurely  drank  it  the  bar-tender 
watched  him  narrowly,  and  as  De  Costa  set  the 
glass  down  the  former  dropped  into  the  till  the 
five  cents  which  he  had  meantime  held  median- 


72  CAP    DE    COSTA. 

ically  in  his  hand,  and  ejaculated:  ''Well, 
Sandy,  that  is  pretty  good,  too.  Have  one  with 
me."  And  he  had  one.  It  must  have  been 
three  months  after  this  that  De  Costa  made  his 
reappearance  as  a  member  of  the  regular  night 
force  at  No.  H5  Broadway.  He  had  been  receiv- 
ing from  some  rapid  sender  in  Washington  all  the 
evening,  and  about  ten  o'clock  a  number  of  the 
operators  gathered  about  him  and  were  admiring 
his  beautiful  copy.  One  of  them,  who  had  been 
timing  the  sending,  finally  said:  "Good  work; 
forty-three  words  a  minute  for  the  last  five  min- 
utes." At  this  the  captain  opened  his  key  for 
the  first  time  that  night,  and  feelingly  said: 
"  There  is  no  merit  in  being  a  good  telegrapher. 
It  is  born  in  some  men,  just  as  poetry  is,  or  sweet- 
ness in  a  woman.  But  I'll  tell  you  what  does 
require  brains — to  get  three  beers  and  a  ride 
home  on  a  street  car  for  nine  cents.  /  did 
that,  fellow  circuit-busters,"  and  then  he  told 
us  how,  as  herein  related. 


OLD  GEORGE  WENTWORTE 


OLD    GEORGE   WENTWOKTH. 


Ix  the  year  of  our  Lord  1867,  there  came  to 
work  in  the  Western  Union  Telegraph  Office,  at 
No.  145  Broadway,  a  thin,  prematurely  old  and 
gray  young  man  of  not  more  than  twenty-six 
years.  No  one  seemed  to  know  anything  about 
him,  and  he  soon  dropped  into  our  ranks,  and 
came  and  went,  day  after  day,  without  eliciting 
much  interest  on  the  part  of  those  around  him. 
He  was  very  quiet,  and  seldom  spoke  unless 
addressed,  but  then  in  a  low  and  sweetly  musical 
voice.  That  he  was  intelligent  and  well  educated 
everybody  conceded ;  but  he  manifested  no  dispo- 
sition to  mix  with  the  general  throng,  and  thus  it 
happened  that  the  general  throng,  without  think- 
ing much  about  it,  came  to  speak  of  him  with 
more  respect  than  the  appellation  given  him 
—  "Old  George  Went  worth  " —  would  imply, 
and  left  him  pretty  much  to  himself.  He  sat 
right   across    the    aisle   from    me,   and   I   often 


(ib) 


7G  OLD    GEORGE    WENTWORTH. 

studied  his  sad  though  pleasant  face,  and  ere 
long  put  his  name  down  in  my  mind  with  those 
of  some  other  men  I  had  met,  and  whom  I  may 
briefly  describe  by  stating  that  they  were  men  with 
histories.  Yes,  I  was  moderately  sure  that 
George  Wentworth  had  a  history,  and  I  longed  to 
know  what  it  was,  and  give  him  my  young  and 
boyish  friendship  with  my  whole  heart.  But 
months  passed,  and  we  knew  no  more  of  our 
associate  than  we  did  when  he  came,  except  that 
he  was  a  magnificent  operator,  and  that  he  was 
as  sweet  as  a  day  in  June,  though  as  sad,  as  I 
have  indicated,  as  the  melancholy  and  sighing 
days  of  the  later  autumn.  His  voice  and  man- 
ner always  reminded  me  of  the  falling  of  the 
hectic  October  leaves,  the  surging  of  the  autumn 
wind  through  leafless  branches.  But  the  glori- 
ous sunbeams  were  always  resting  on  his  head, 
making  sweet  and  lovable  his  life  and  character. 

One  night  we  had  a  severe  sleet  storm,  and 
hardly  a  wire  was  left  intact  in  any  direction. 
The  full  force  had  been  ordered  on  duty.  They 
waited  for  the  lines  to  come  "  0.  K./'  and  sat 
about  in  little  knots,  telling  stories  and  speculat- 
ing on  the  chances  of  being  kept  on  duty  until 


OLD    GEORGE    WENTWOKTH.  77 

morning.  For  a  Lime  I  formed  one  of  Hie  little 
company,  but  not  being  particularly  interested  in 
the  subject  of  discussion,  and  seeing  George 
Wentworth  sitting  alone,  I  approached  him. 
After  a  short  exchange  of  commonplaces,  I 
asked,  abruptly: 

"  Are  you  a  married  man,  Mr.  Wentworth?" 

The  reply  came  slowly:  "  No." 

If  that  little  monosyllable  had  been  kept  on  ice 
for  a  century  it  could  not  have  been  colder.  I 
saw  that  I  had  been  imprudent — that  I  had  awk- 
wardly touched  a  chord  in  the  man's  heart  that 
was  sacred.  I  was  very  sorry,  and  being  very 
young  and  inexperienced  in  hiding  my  emotions,  I 
made  a  failure  of  it.  The  tears  came  into  my  eyes, 
my  lip  trembled,  and  I  felt  wretched.  He  saw 
the  state  of  things  at  a  glance,  and  said,  kindly: 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,  Tom.  I  didn't  mean  to 
be  rude;  but  I  had  just  been  thinking  of  events 
scarcely  six  years  old,  but  such  bitter,  hopeless 
memories  that  it  seems  as  if  I  had  lived  a  thou- 
sand years  since  the  page  on  which  they  are  writ- 
ten was  turned  down  in  the  book  of  Fate — turned 
down  forever." 

He   paused,    and    I    said    nothing.       "  I   have 


78  OLD    GEORGE    WENTWORTH. 

never  spoken  of  these  things,"  he  continued, 
"  but  I  think  I  was  something  like  you  at 
twenty.  How  sadly  I  have  changed  since  then!" 
He  stopped  again,  and  then  continued:  "I 
don't  mind  telling  you  my  story,  if  you  would 
care  to  hear  it."  And.  as  I  eagerly  answered: 
"i)o  tell  me,"  he  resumed:  "It  is  a  sad  story, 
my  little  friend;  it  concerns  a  woman.  Some  say 
hearts  do  not  break;  others,  that  women's  hearts 
do  sometimes,  but  that  a  man's  is  tough,  and  can 
bear  disaster  to  the  affections  without  material 
injury.  Maybe  it  is  true,  generally  speaking; 
but  there  are  exceptions — the  exceptions,  I  sup- 
pose," he  said,  musingly,  "  that  philosophers 
would  tell  you  prove  the  rule.  You  see  me  to- 
day old  and  prematurely  gray.  I  have  never 
been  a  dissipated  man.  I  inherited  a  fine  consti- 
tution from  my  father.  I  have  lived  regularly, 
and  have  never  suffered  from  disease,  but  I  am  as 
you  see  me,  nevertheless.  Do  you  ask  me  if  I 
am  heart-broken?  I  can  not  say  that;  but  I  have 
mourned  over  dead  and  buried  hopes  for  five 
years,  and  God's  beautiful  world  will  never  look 
so  fair  and  sweet  again  to  me  as  at  the  hour  when 
I  close  my  eyes  upon  it  forever." 


OLD    GEORGE    WENTWOETH.  79 

He  moved  slightly  in  his  chair,  and  said,  as  if 
studying  on  the  matter:  "  It  looks  like  a  case  of 
broken  heart,  doesn't  it?" 

Then  he  was  silent  for  several  minutes;  but 
when  he  spoke  again  his  voice  had  changed,  and 
he  proceeded  more  cheerfully  than  I  had  ever 
heard  him  speak  before: 

"  Six  years  ago  last  August  I  was  employed  in 
an  Eastern  city.  I  worked  the  New  York  wire, 
and  one  day  while  I  was  sending,  an  ofliec-boy 
came  up,  and  said:  'Mr.  Wentworth,  there's  a 
lady  outside  as  wants  to  see  yer. '  I  cleared  my 
hook,  asked  New  York  to  wait  a  second,  and 
went  out  into  the  vestibule  of  the  office.  A 
vision  of  loveliness,  such  as  I  had  never  seen  until 
then,  stood  before  me.  She  was  an  entire 
stranger  to  me;  but  we  were  soon  chatting 
gayly,  nevertheless,  for  she  had  said  in  the  mean- 
time: '  I  am  Helen  Banks,  from  Saybrook.  and 
as  I  was  passing  through  here  on  my  way  to 
Rockville,  where  I  am  to  take  the  office,  I 
thought  it  not  improper  that  I  should  call  and 
renew,  in  propria  persona,  the  acquaintance  we 
bad  formed  by  wire." 

"  I  have  burdened  you  by  inference  with  one 


80  OLD    GEORGE     WENTWORTH. 

exploded  theory,  so  don't  mind  another/'  he  con- 
tinued. "  I  fell  in  love  at  first  sight.  She  was  a 
lovely  creature,  small  of  stature,  bright,  intelli- 
gent, modest,  enchanting,  and  she  appeared  to 
me  as  suddenly  and  unexpectedly  as  Diana  ap- 
peared to  Endymion.  How  readily  I  accepted 
Endymion's  role,  and  with  what  alacrity  I  awoke 
from  my  sleep  ot  every-day  life  to  a  new  life  of 
love  and  bliss,  I  need  not  tell  yon.  She  stayed  only 
a  few  minutes,  and  at  parting  she  said,  gayly: 

"  '  I  expect  to  be  intensely  lonesome  down  at 
Rockville,  and  that  my  only  recreation  will  be 
that  derived  from  listening  to  the  birds  and  to 
your  musical  sending.  Think  of  me  sometimes, 
and  when  the  wire  is  idle  say  a  word  to  poor  me, 
won't  you?'  she  went  on,  half  jocosely,  half  in 
earnest.  '  And,'  she  concluded,  '  when  you  are 
too  busy  to  bid  a  body  good-clay,  please  imagine 
that 

"  '  "  Pretty  and  pale  and  tired 

She  sits  in  her  stiff-backed  chair, 
While  (he  blazing  summer  sun 
Shines  on  her  soft  brown  hair," 

and  all  the  rest  of  it.  Good-bye!'  and  she  was 
gone. 


OLD    GEORGE    WENTWORTH.  81 

"  How  dark  and  dismal  the  old  office  looked  as 
I  resumed  my  duties!  The  sunbeams  which,  in 
my  imagination,  nestled  in  her  hair  and  played 
around  the  dimples  in  her  cheeks,  lending  a  new 
and  genial  luster  to  the  office,  and  blessing  every 
nook  and  corner  in  the  dim  old  room  like  a  vis- 
ible benediction,  went  out  with  her.  I  was  very 
thoughtful  and  preoccupied  that  afternoon,  and 
felt  that  I  could  afford  to  smile  at  my  compan- 
ions, who  sought  to  tease  me  by  asking  if  that 
was  the  young  lady  who  inquired  over  the  wire 
so  often  if  Mr.  Wentworth  was  in.  Well,  time 
passed  on,  and  what  with  chatting  on  the  wire, 
and  corresponding  by  mail,  we  finally  reached 
the  period  in  our  acquaintance  when  I  dared  to 
offer  myself  in  marriage.  A  letter  was  the 
medium  of  my  proposal — I  had  not  courage  to 
make  a  personal  appeal." 

He  paused,  and  drummed  on  the  desk  with  his 
fingers  for  a  little  time,  and  then  said: 

"  I  waited  patiently  three  days  for  an  answer; 
but  none  came.  Then  I  waited  a  week,  a  month, 
and  then  she  resigned  and  went  home.  I  dared 
not  make  any  inquiry  of  her  meantime,  though  t 
did  write  confidentially  to  the  postmaster  at  Bock- 


82  OLD    GEORGE    WENTWORTH. 

ville,  and  learned  that  he  had  himself  delivered 
the  letter  into  her  hands.  I  saw  how  it  was;  she 
could  not  accept  me,  and  was  too  kind  to  tell  me 
so.  I  went  into  the  army  when  the  war  broke 
out,  but  returned  home  on  a  furlough  in  1863. 
I  learned  ihat  Helen  had  married  her  cousin  a 
few  months  before  and  had  removed  to  Iowa.  I 
was  resolved  to  make  the  best  of  it  and  be  a  man. 
You  see  how  well  I  have  succeeded,"  he  said, 
smiling  sadly.  "  Just  before  my  furlough  was 
out  I  took  up  a  copy  of  a  morning  paper  pub- 
lished in  the  city  where  I  had  been  formerly  em- 
ployed, and  started  on  seeing  my  own  name. 

"At  first  I  thought  I  had  been  accidentally 
included  in  a  list  of  killed  and  wounded.  1 
hastily  turned  the  paper  to  read  the  heading,  and 
my  heart  sunk  within  me.  Through  hot,  blind- 
ing tears,  which  I  could  not  stay,  I  read  the  sad, 
sad  story  that  made  me  what  I  am.  A  post-office 
clerk  had  been  arrested  for  robbing  the  mail;  in 
his  room  were  found  unindorsed,  and  therefore 
useless,  checks,  '  and  among  other  things,'  the 
account  said,  '  personal  letters  to  the  following 
named  addresses.'  Then  followed  a  list  of  a  hun- 
dred or  more  names,  among  which  was  mine.     I 


OLD    GEORGE    WENTWORTH.  83 

took    the   first    train    to ,    and   applying    at 

police  head-quarters,  obtained  my  letter.  It  was 
as  T  had  feared;  it  was  her  letter  accepting  me  as 
her  husband.  I  crushed  it  in  my  hands,  and 
crying:  'Oh.  God!  too  late,  too  late!'  fell  swoon- 
ing on  the  Moor.  A  few  weeks  later  I  went  back 
to  my  post  in  the  army.  My  comrades  said  I 
was  the  bravest  man  they  had  ever  seen.  I 
rushed  into  the  thickest  of  the  fight,  and  feared 
nothing.  I  courted  an  honorable  death;  but 
bullets  whistled  by  me,  shells  burst  by  my  side, 
killing  men  by  dozens.  The  fever  broke  out  in 
our  regiment,  and  fifty  men  died  in  one  week, 
but  I  lived  on.  Promotion  followed  promotion, 
and  at  last,  to  please  my  mother,  I  resigned  my 
commission,  stayed  at  home  a  month,  and  finally 
promised  to  keep  out  of  the  army  on  condition  that 
I  should  resume  work  at  my  old  business  wherever 
I  coidd  find  it.  Since  then  I  have  been  in  Canada, 
and  finally  drifted  to  New  York  to  be  nearer 
home.  Now,  Tom,  let  me  tell  you  here  that — " 
"  Mr.  Wentworth,  we  have  got  one  wire  up  to 
Washington;  answer  him  for  a  Sun  special, 
please,"  called  out  Night  Manager  Marks  from 
the  switch;  and  the  story  was  ended. 


81  OLD    GEORGE     WENTWORTH. 

The  thread  thus  broken  was  never  taken  up 
again,  and  by  some  indefinable  understanding 
between  us,  I  guarded  Went  worth's  secret  as 
jealously  as  if  it  were  I  who  had  loved  and  lost, 
and  henceforward  neither  of  us  mentioned  it. 

I  left  New  York  soon  after  this,  and  never  saw 
George  Wentworth  again  until  I  stood  one  August 
day,  two  years  later,  in  a  small  Connecticut  town, 
and  looked  down  upon  all  that  was  mortal  of 
him  as  he  lay  in  his  coffin.  His  sweet  face  was 
as  natural  as  in  life,  and  scarcely  any  paler.  His 
mother  stood  by  and  reverently  kissed  his  brow 
again  and  again,  wdiile  the  sturdy  frame  of  his 
grand  old  father  trembled  like  a  reed  shaken  in 
the  wind  as  he  gazed  fondly  and  tearfully  upon 
the  dead.  There  were  not  many  particulars  of 
his  death  to  be  obtained.  It  was  obvious  that  no 
one  excepting  the  old  pastor  knew  of  his  love 
and  the  suffering  he  had  undergone. 

"  He  came  home,"  said  his  mother,  "  about  a 
month  ago,  looking  no  worse  than  usual,  but  he 
shortly  began  to  fail  perceptibly  day  by  day. 
The  doctor  came  and  prescribed  a  change  of  air, 
but  George  said  he  would  be  better  soon,  and 
begged   to  remain  quietly  where   he   was.     One 


OLD    GEORGE     WENTWORTH.  S,"> 

afternoon  he  walked  out  under  the  elms  and  lay 
clown  in  the  hammock.  At  six  o'clock  I  went  out 
and  asked  him  to  return  to  the  house.  He  said : 
'  Not  yet,  mother.  It  is  delightful  here;  the 
breeze  refreshes  me,  and  I  feel  perfectly  easy  and 
content.  I  will  remain  where  I  am— thank 
you — and  watch  the  sun  go  down.'  When  the 
sun  had  set  I  went  out  again,  but,"  she  added,  in 
a  breaking,  though  sweetly  musical  voice  like 
George's,  "  my  boy  had  gone  to  rest  with  the 
sun,  whose  downward  course  he  watched." 

The  minister  came  and  preached  the  customary 
sermon,  ranking  the  dead  man  with 

"  ilen  whose  lives  glide  on  like  rivers  that  water  the 
woodlands, 
Daikened   by   shadows  of    earth,   but   reflecting    an 
image  of  heaven;" 

the  modest  cortege  moved  away,  and  George 
Wentworth  was  laid  to  rest  in  a  solitary  grave 
beneath  the  murmuring  pines  on  a  neighboring 
hill-side.  That  was  done  at  his  request,  made  to 
the  old  preacher,  whom  he  also  acquainted  with 
his  story  when  he  felt  that  the  end  was  near. 
Not  being  a  relative,  I  did  not  go  to  the  grave, 
and   as   I   prepared   to  leave  the  house  I  met  a 


86  OLD    GEORGE     WENTWORTH. 

sweet,  sad-faced  woman,  whom  I  had  noticed 
when  she  approached  and  gazed  long  and  ten- 
derly upon  the  form  of  my  departed  friend,  and 
then  retired  to  a  remote  corner  of  the  room  weep- 
ing painfully.  Some  one  said  she  was  a  stranger, 
others  that  she  was  some  woman  living  in  the 
village,  and  still  others  said  that  she  was  a  rela- 
tive. But  I  knew  she  was  not  the  latter,  else 
she  would  have  been  provided  with  a  carriage. 
We  left  the  house  together,  and  as  we  walked 
down  the  neat  gravel  path,  1  said: 

"  This  is  a  very  pretty  village.  Do  you  live 
here?" 

"  No,  sir,"  she  replied;  "  I  live  many,  many 
miles  from  here.  Mr.  Wentworth  was  an  old 
friend  of  mine,  and  my  husband  insisted  that  I 
should  come  to  his  funeral." 

"  You  live  in  Iowa,  perhaps,"  said  I,  gently. 
Our  eyes  met  for  a  moment,  and  we  understood 
each  other. 

"  You  are  married,  I  believe — happily  so,  I 
trust?"  I  ventured,  after  a  moment. 

"  My  husband  is  very  kind,"  she  replied.  "  I 
am  quite  content,  thank  you.  We  have  two 
children, " 


OLD    GEORGE    WENTWORTH.  87 

"  I  suppose  you  know  the  whole  story,"  I 
added,  after  a  pause — "  the  stolen  letter,  his 
suffering,  and  his  unaltered  love?" 

"  Yes,  sir;  I  know  it  all  now,"  she  said,  weep- 
ing. "  The  good  parson  who  preached  the 
funeral  sermon  to-day  wrote  me  the  sad  story  a 
few  weeks  ago.  It  was  he,  too,  who  telegraphed 
George's  death,  and  influenced  his  parents,  with- 
out disclosing  his  motive,  to  defer  the  funeral 
until  now.  I  arrived  only  at  noon  to-day.  Oh, 
sir,"  she  continued,  "  I  try  to  think  it  is  all  for 
the  best.  I  pray  to  Heaven  to  help  me  to  be 
true  and  good  to  my  kind  and  affectionate  hus- 
band, and  to  make  me  worthy  of  my  pure  and 
guileless  little  ones;  but  I  sometimes  fear  that  I 
have  only  a  shattered  heart  left  to  love  them 
with." 

We  shook  hands  and  separated,  probably  for- 
ever. I  went  back  to  my  telegraphing,  and  she 
back  to  Iowa,  her  husband  and  little  ones,  and 
her  great  sorrow.  And  that  ends  the  story, 
unless  1  add  an  odd  fancy  of  my  own. 

Sometimes,  when  the  house  is  hushed  and  mid- 
night draws  near,  I  sit  and  smoke  and  dream, 
Watching  the  clouds  as  they  curl  upward  from 


88  OLD    GEORGE    WENT  WORTH. 

my  cigar,  or  peering  through  the  smoke-rings  I 
blow  forth,  I  see  hopes  and  joys  that  have  passed 
me  by,  which,  as  they  vanish  in  the  haze,  leave 
my  cheeks  wet.  And  as  I  sit  and  muse  anon, 
my  mind  flits  back  to  a  quiet  rustic  village,  and 
I  hear  the  winds  sighing  softly  through  the  pines 
above  a  solitary  grave  on  a  hill-side.  Looking 
west,  I  see  a  sweet,  sad-faced  matron  sitting 
beneath  a  cottage  portico,  and  happy,  gleeful 
children  are  about  her.  Then  I  listen  to  the 
pines  again,  and  I  fancy  I  hear  them  whisper: 

"  Pretty  and  pale  and  tired 

She  sits  in  her  stiff-backed  chair, 
While  the  blazing  summer  sun 
Shines  on  her  soft  brown  hair;" 

and  as  I  turn  once  more  I  see  her  yet  again- 
waiting,  waiting,  waiting. 


PATSY    FLANNAGAN. 


PATSY  FLANNAGAN. 


If  we  were  to  inquire  closely  into  the  matter  of 
the  success  of  great  men,  we  should  no  doubt  find 
that  the  chief  secret  of  their  triumphs  was  tireless 
patience.  In  Patsy's  case  patience  has  certainly 
accomplished  marvels — miracles,  I  sometimes 
think.  His  ruddy  face  and  big  brogans  attracted 
my  attention  one  day,  and  on  inquiry  I  learned 
that  he  was  a  new  addition  to  the  messenger 
force.  As  a  brother  messenger,  a  broad-faced 
urchin,  expressed  it,  Patsy  was  "as  Irish  as  Pat 
Murphy's  pig."  Without  being  at  all  familiar 
with  the  probable,  not  to  say  the  precise,  degree 
of  Celtic  character  obtaining  in  the  nature  of 
Mr.  Murphy's  porcine,  I  readily  believed  what  I 
heard,  for  Patsy  was  one  of  the  most  thorough- 
going sons  of  Erin  that  I  had  ever  seen.  We 
found  him  a  very  faithful  boy,  with  a  tolerable 
turn  for  grumbling  when  his  route  was  a  long 

(91) 


92  PATS\     FLANNAGAN". 

one,  while  for  a  pure  article  of  unadulterated 
profanity  when  harassed  by  his  companions  of 
the  messengers'  bench,  he  was  without  a  peer. 
I  once  told  him  that  he  was  born  too  late — that 
he  would  have  been  a  valuable  acquisition  to 
"  our  army  in  Flanders,"  but  he  merely  regarded 
me  with  a  stony  look  for  a  second,  and  went  on 
reading  the  Beadle's  Dime  Kovel  from  which  I 
had  momentarily  diverted  his  attention. 

Without  having  enjoyed  unusual  school  facili- 
ties, and  possessed  of  no  decided  tendency  to 
study — now  that  he  was  free  from  pedagogical 
restraint  and  incentives — it  soon  transpired, 
nevertheless,  that  Patsy  was  not  without  aspira- 
tions. At  the  end  of  a  year  he  had  grown 
tremendously,  and  in  reply  to  an  inquiry  as  to 
what  he  intended  to  do  when  he  was  too  big  to 
carry  messages,  he  said: 

"  I  am  next  oldest  boy  on  the  messenger  list, 
and  when  I  am  the  oldest  wan,  and  a  clerk 
leaves,  I  am  going  to  try  for  it." 

The  idea  of  Patsy  ever  becoming  a  clerk  was 
absurd,  and  his  interrogator  laughed  and  left  the 
boy  to  his  dreams.  Patsy  made  no  secret  of  his 
designs  on  a  clerkship,  and  after  awhile  it  became 


I'ATSY      Kl.ANN  \<;\.>\  93 

a  common  thing  for  the  operators  to  say  that 
they  would  probably  get  their  salaries  raised 
when  Patsy  got  his  clerkship.  Meantime,  the 
months  ran  by,  and  Patsy  was  the  oldest  messen- 
ger at  last.  Finally  the  night  clerk  resigned  to 
engage  in  other  and,  I  trust,  more  lucrative 
business,  and  Patsy  came  to  the  front  with  a 
personal  application  for  the  position.  Our  man- 
ager told  him — told  him  rather  savagely — to  go 
and  sit  down,  and  Patsy  obeyed  with  an  air  such 
as  the  youthful  Disraeli  assumed,  I  fancy,  when 
he  roared  back  at  his  jeering  colleagues  in  Parlia- 
ment that  memorable  speech: 

"  I  am  not  at  all  surprised  at  the  reception  I 
have  experienced.  I  have  begun  several  times 
many  things,  and  I  have  often  succeeded  at  last. 
I  will  sit  down  now,  but  the  time  will  come  when 
you  will  listen  to  me." 

In  time  the  night  clerkship  was  again  vacant, 
and  Patsy  waited  on  the  manager.  Again  he  was 
rebuffed  more  decidedly  than  before,  and  again 
he  took  his  seat  not  a  whit  discouraged.  I  recall 
him  to  mind  as  he  was  in  those  days — zealous, 
but  righteously  indignant  whenever  he  was  sent 
on*  on   a  long   journe}\     He   had   a  fashion  of 


m  PATSY    FLANXAGAN. 

puffing  out  his  cheeks  when  tilings  went  wrong, 
and  his  face  was  a  barometer,  by  which  we  all 
knew,  as  he  came  swinging  across  the  operating- 
room,  on  his  way  from  the  delivery-desk  to  the 
rear  exit,  how  matters  fared   with  him.     When 
the  route  was  short  he  was  as  pleasant-visaged 
perhaps   as  Aminidab   Sleek,  but   not  more   so. 
When  it  was  medium,  he  began  to  swell  about 
half-way  down  the  room,  and  reserved  his  bless- 
ings on  the  head  of  the  delivery-clerk  until  he 
reached  the  door;  but  when  he  had  what  the  boys 
called     'aswinjer,"    his    appearance    presaged 
apoplexy  from   the  first,  and  he  indulged,  while 
yet  in  the  operating-room,  in  observations  which, 
like   the   single   sentence   of    invective    by    Mr. 
Harte's   Vulgar    Little   Boy,    conveyed  a   reflec- 
tion on  the  legitimacy  of  the  offending   clerk's 
birth,  hinted  a  suspicion  of  his  father's  integrity, 
impugned  the  fair  fame  of  his  mother,  and  cast  a 
doubt  on  the  likelihood  of  his  eventual  salvation. 
Time  after  time  Patsy  applied  for  a  clerkship, 
and  one  day  he  was  met  with  the  inquiry  from 
the  manager: 

'  What   can  you   do?    You   are  irrepressible, 
Patsy;  I  am  tired  of  sending  you  to  your  seat." 


PATSY     FLANXAGAX.  95 

"  I  think,  sur,"  returned  Patsy.  ';  that  I  can 
do  as  good  as  '  the  Count/  '  (the  retiring  clerk) 
"  anvhow,  and  you  never  give  me  a  chance  at  all 
to  try.     I  only  want  a  chance.'' 

The  upshot  of  this  dialogue,  which  is  unpar- 
donably  abridged,  was  that  Patsy  succeeded  "  the 
Count."  He  appeared  on  the  evening  of  his 
succession  to  the  night  clerkship  in  a  white  shirt 
and  a  collar — a  new  departure  for  him.  "  The 
ould  woman,"  he  explained,  "  put  these  things 
out,  and  said  I  must  wear  them."  Patsy 
believed  in  his  mother,  and  obeyed  her,  I  remem- 
ber, much  better  than  many  youths  who  made 
greater  pretensions  than  he  did.  He  adhered  to 
his  hobnailed  shoes  for  several  months;  but  one 
day  they  gave  place  to  "  Oxford  ties,"  a  cravat 
followed,  and  so,  little  by  little,  the  rough  boy 
was  transformed  into  quite  a  tidy  young  man. 
As  I  have  said,  Patsy  had  not  enjoyed  unusual 
educational  advantages,  and  he  was  particularly 
uncertain  in  his  geography;  so  when  a  message 
was  tendered  for  Calais  without  the  State  being- 
given,  he  failed  to  find  that  station  in  the  tarift'- 
book.  Kather  than  ask  the  sender  for  the  infor- 
mation, he  came  slyly  over  to  me  and  inquired  in 


9(3  TATSY    FLANNAGAN. 

a  hoarse  whisper:  "  In  fhat  State  is  Kay-lye-us?" 
I  looked  at  the  message  in  his  hand,  corrected 
him  on  his  pronunciation,  and  replied  that  Calais 
was  in  Maine.  Patsy  learned  two  things  that 
ni<dit — that  Calais  was  not  pronounced  Kay- 
lye -us,  and  that  it  was  in  Maine.  It  was  one  of 
his  peculiarities  that  he  never  forgot  what  he  had 
once  learned.  He  asked  me  many  queer  ques- 
tions during  subsequent  years  of  pleasant  business 
relations,  but  he  was  clear  on  Calais  for  all  time, 
both  as  to  its  pronunciation  and  locality. 

One  evening  a  lady,  much  agitated,  called  to 
send  a  telegram,  and  Patsy  was  requested  to 
write  it.  When  I  took  the  message  from  the  hook 
to  send  it,  I  was  struck  by  the  phraseology  and 
the  conflicting  circumstance  that  it  was  evidently 
from  an  American,  it  being  signed  "  Mrs.  Mason." 
It  read:  "  Your  brother  Jim  lies  at  the  point  of 
death.  Come  quick,  if  you  would  see  him  liv- 
ing." 

"  Who     got     up    this     remarkable    message, 

Patsy?"  I  inquired. 

"I  did,  sur,"  he  replied,  blushing.  He  had 
come  to  know  me  pretty  well,  and  had  found 
that  I  was  rather  plain-spoken. 


PATSY    FLAXXAGAX.  97 

"  It  is  horribly  expressed  for  a  Yankee's 
message,"  I  continued — "  regular  Irish.  We 
had  better  write  it  over." 

Patsy  intimated  that  he  had  never  discovered 
any  noticeable  difference  between  an  Irishman's 
message  and  an  American's.  He  said  he  had 
done  the  best  he  could  with  it.  He  thought  it 
would  be  understood  by  the  recipients,  and  he 
supposed  that  was  enough.  I  felt  sorry  that  I 
had  been  rude,  and  replied  that  I  had  spoken 
hastily — that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  as  he  well  knew, 
no  man  had  a  higher  opinion  of  the  sturdy  sons 
of  Erin  than  I.  I  then  went  on  to  speak  of  what 
Goldsmith,  Sheridan,  Curran,  Moore,  and  a  host 
of  others,  had  done  for  English  literature,  and 
essayed  to  give  him  some  ideas  about  the  faculty 
of  expression,  and  endeavored  to  disabuse  his 
mind  of  the  notion  that  to  make  one's  self 
understood  was  not  necessarily  the  highest  and 
most  valuable  use  to  which  language  could  be 
put.  He  listened  attentively,  and  subsequent 
events  proved  that  my  crude  lecture  on  the  art  of 
writing  gracefully  was  not  lost  on  him.  We 
indited  a  new  message,  reading  thus:  "  Your 
brother  James    is  dangerously   ill.      It   will   be 

4 


98  PATSY    FLANNAGAN. 

necessary  for  you  to  come  immediately  if  you 
wish  to  see  him  alive." 

Walking  home  together  after  "good-night," 
Patsy  observed,  after  a  long  silence,  that  there 
was  "  wan  thing  about  that  improved  stoile  of 
writing  messages  that  wasn't  as  good  as  an  Irish- 
man's way." 

"  No?"  I  replied.  "  And,  pray,  what  is 
that?" 

"  That  message  I  wrote,"  he  answered,  "  had 
seventeen  worruds.  The  tariff  is  forty  and 
three.  I  tuck  sixty-wan  cents  on  it,  and  the  way 
you  fixed  it  over  it  made  twenty-two  worruds, 
and  came  to  seventy-three  cents.  I  am  twelve 
cents  short  on  it,  and  I'll  have  to  borrow  twelve 
cents  of  the  ould  man  to  square  up  my  account 
with  to  morrow  night." 

It  was  a  home  thrust;  but  he  made  his  point 
against  me  without  a  grain  of  malice,  for  he  saw 
it  not,  and  I  did  not  enlighten  him.  But  I  went 
home  thinking  there    were    two   sides    to   every 

story. 

Time  wore  on,  and  Patsy  became  an  excellent 
clerk;  but  his  ambition  grew  apace,  and  one  day 
he  turned  his  attention  to   the  Morse   alphabet. 


PATSY    FLA  XX  AG  AX.  99 

Oh,  then  began  the  terror  to  my  soul!  I  stood 
it  for  about  six  months.  But  one  evening,  when 
I  had  listened  to  his  sending  for  half  an  hour 
without  catching  the  first  sound  that  resembled 
a  Morse  character,  I  went  over  to  him,  and  said : 

"  Patsy,  T  am  afraid  you  will  never  make  an 
operator.  I  have  heard  a  great  deal  of  your 
sending,  and  I  have  never  yet  been  able  to  dis- 
tinguish a  letter,  to  say  nothing  of  a  whole 
word." 

He  looked  aghast,  and  I  continued: 

"'  Operators  are  like  poets — they  are  born,  not 
made;  and  I  am  afraid  you  are  the  counterpart 
of  the  young  man  of  whom  our  friend  Jack  Sel- 
den  tells,  who,  after  practicing  a  3rear,  would 
make  a  series  of  dashes  and  a  whirlwind  of  dots, 
and  blandly  inquire,  '  How  is  that  for  an  A  '?" 

"  I  was  timing  myself,  and  sent  half  a  column 
out  of  the  Journal  in  an  hour.  I  thought  it  was 
good  Morse,"  he  said,  dolefully. 

"  I  don't  want  to  discourage  you,  Patsy,"  I  re- 
turned. "  Indeed,  you  know  very  well  that  a 
good  many  boys  who  are  now  fine  operators 
learned  the  business  under  my  tuition,  but  the 
fact  is,  you  make  no  progress  whatsoever.    I  hope 


100  PATSY    FLANNAGAN. 

you  will  stick  to  clerking  and  leave  this  branch  of 
the  business  to  others  who  are  better  adapted  to 
its  requirements." 

Patsy  replied:  "  I  suppose  I'll  have  to  begin 
all  over  again." 

I  saw  that  he  was  determined  to  succeed,  and 
so  advised  him  to  begin  at  the  beginning  and  pro- 
ceed slowly.  He  thought  some  one  ought  to 
have  corrected  him.  "  When  John  was  working 
for  you  wan  night/'  Patsy  went  on,  "he  said  1 
had  a  hand  like  a  ham,  but  he  didn't  tell  me  I 
was  all  wrong.  I've  got  to  learn  it  anyhow," 
he  concluded,  as  he  lighted  a  black  clay  pipe  and 
went  out  and  turned  down  the  gas  in  the  cus- 
tomers' department. 

"  I  suppose  I'll  have  to  begin  all  over  again," 
was  characteristic  of  Patsy  Flannagan.  In  his 
modest  lexicon  there  was  no  such  word  as  fail, 
and  I  honored  and  helped  him  from  that  time 
out.  The  gods  help  those  who  help  themselves, 
so,  after  all,  I  had  but  little  to  do.  Patsy  had 
much  to  overcome.  He  had  learned  to  write  a 
style  of  Morse  that  was  as  Greek  to  skilled 
operators,  and  his  handwriting  was  unformed; 
but  in  two  years  after  the  dialogue  given  above, 


PATSY    FLANNAGAiN".  101 

Patsy  was  not  only  one  of  the  finest  senders  I 
ever  heard,  but  one  of  the  most  finished  receiv- 
ers as  well.  Not  long  since  I  heard  that  he  had 
bought  a  newspaper  and  was  the  owner  of  fine 
horses  and  a  yacht.  In  the  quiet,  well-mannered 
man  of  the  world  there  is  nothing  left  of  the  boy 
of  twenty  years  ago — nothing  but  his  determina- 
tion, his  courage,  and  his  heart  of  gold. 


NARCISSA. 


NARCISSA. 


Narcissa's  mother  called  on  our  manager  one 
day  to  apply  for  a  situation  for  her  daughter. 
She  explained  that  she  came  from  Foxboro,  was 
a  widow,  and  had  visited  Providence  to  dispose  of 
some  butter  and  cheese.  She  said  Narcissa  had 
been  "  practicing  in  the  Isolated  Company's 
office,"  and  added  that  "  Mr.  Van  Shoot  says  she 
doose  fus'  rate."  Something  in  the  old  lady's 
homely  though  sincere  manner  enlisted  our  man- 
ager's interest,  and  knowing  that  vacancies  on 
the  Insulated  Line,  recently  established  by  Mr. 
Van  Choate,  were  few,  owing  to  the  limited  num- 
ber of  offices,  he  told  her  mother  that  he  thought 
perhaps  Narcissa  would  do  to  succeed  the  retiring 
operator  at  Howgate. 

"  That  will  be  clever,"  returned  the  mother. 
"  I   ain't   never   had  no  chance    to  go    nowhere 

myself,  and  I  want  Narcissay  to  git  some  polish 

nor-) 


106  KAECISSA, 

onto  her  by  going  away  from  hum  a  spell."  So 
it  was  decided  that  Nareissa  should  come  down 
next  day,  and  if  she  passed  a  satisfactory  exami- 
nation, go  up  to  Howgate  at  once.  She  dawned 
on  us  bright  and  early.  I  say  dawned  on  us 
advisedly,  for  she  was  "  as  pretty  as  little  red 
shoes,"  and  wherever  she  went  likewise  went 
sunshine.  There  were  five  of  us  in  the  American 
Company's  office,  all  young  and  single,  and  we 
were  madly  in  love  with  her  on  sight.  Oh!  but 
she  was  pretty,  and  the  little  rogue  seemed  to  be 
perfectly  oblivious  of  it,  too,  which  rendered  her 
trebly  bewitching.  She  was  what  the  country 
people  called  bright,  but  she  was  by  no  means 
cultivated.  While  her  speech  ran  less  luxuriantly 
to  negatives  than  her  worthy  mother's,  it  was 
faulty,  and  it  was  disturbing  to  say  the  least,  to 
hear  her  ejaculate:  "You  don't  say  so,"  or 
"  Dew  tell,"  when  we  explained  the  modus 
operandi  of  transacting  business  in  a  large  office. 
But  whatever  faults  of  culture  were  hers,  she  was 
a  vision  of  delight  viewed  as  a  physical  creation. 
Such  bonny  brown  hair,  with  a  tinge  of  sunshine 
in  it;  such  a  chin;  such  teeth,  and  such  a  plump 
figure!     It  would  have  been  sheer  blindness  not 


NAECISSA.  107 

to  have  fallen  in  love  with  her.  None  of  us 
suffered  from  impaired  vision,  and  we  became 
enamored  with  one  accord.  We  read  of  damask 
cheeks  in  our  maturer  years,  and  instinctively 
think  of  the  bloom  of  youth,  lily-white,  and  pearl 
powder.  We  are  apt,  moreover,  to  revive  that 
overworked  joke  of  Sheridan's,  and  observe, 
cynically:  "  Yes,  her  color  comes  and  goes — 
comes  in  the  afternoon,  and  is  gone  in  the  morn- 
ing." But  no  one  who  ever  saw  Narcissa  but 
would  believe  in  a  damask  skin. 

"  Her  cheek  was  like  a  Catherine  pear, 
The  side  that's  next  the  sun." 

I  am  afraid  as  I  grow  older  and  more  conscien- 
tious, that  Narcissa  was  not  an  expert  operator; 
but  we  made  a  report  to  the  manager  which 
secured  her  the  Howgate  office.  He  was  not  a 
Morse  operator  himself,  and  trusted  us  implicitly. 
I  suppose  that  if  by  any  chance  she  could  have 
been  retained  at  Providence,  we  should  have 
agreed  on  a  favorable  verdict,  whatever  qualifica- 
tions might  have  been  requisite.  To  be  sure,  she 
made  an  "!*'  for  a  "  w,"  and  she  was  so 
prodigal  with  her  dots  that  if  the  surplus  ones 
had  been  counted  and  checked  against  her — as  I 


108  NAECISSA. 

am  told  is  now  the  practice  on  certain  nameless 
lines — her  salary  would  not  have  paid  the  tolls. 
But  in  our  eyes  those  were  but  trifles  in  those 
glad  years,  and  looking  down  into  the  pure 
depths  of  her  violet  eyes,  I  thought  she  was  an 
angel,  and  I  almost  came  to  think  that  "gku" 
was  an  improvement  on  "  t  n  k  u,"  as  she  said  it 
to  Fred  Ford,  who  had  just  told  her  from  the 
switch  that  she  sent  like  a  man.  He  blushed  a 
little  as  she  naively  inquired  how  long  he  had 
read  by  hound.  I  am  not  sure  but  she  said  by 
pound;  but  I  abated  my  admiration  not  one  iota. 
That  was  a  long  time  ago,  little  Narcissa.  I 
wonder  where  you  are  to-day,  and  I  wonder,  too, 
if  you  are  as  happy  and  contented  as  you  were 
once  sweet  and  winning!  "  The  years  are  swin- 
dlers," says  the  singer;  "  they  make  us  old  be- 
fore they  make  us  good."  But  I  hope  you  are 
not  old,  even  though  the  years  have  crumbled  be- 
neath us  sadly  since  that  radiant  day  of  meeting. 
Perchance  you  are  wafting  lightnings  somewhere 
in  New  England ;  but  more  likely  you  are  mar- 
ried, and  have  merry,  romping  children  plucking 
at  your  gown  to  share  their  mother's  smile.  I 
trust  that  peace,  prosperity  and  all  good  things 


NARCISSA.  109 

surround  you  wherever  you  may  be,  and  if  you 
are  as  pretty  as  of  old,  you  must  make  happy 
even  the  placid  mirror  which  reflects  your  sunny 
face. 

Pardon  the  digression,  my  reader;  but  it  is  so 
natural  to  fall  to  musing  that  I  could  not  help  it. 
When  you  grow  older,  and  your  brown  locks  or 
tresses  are  streaked  with  silver,  and  younger  men 
and  women  are  doing  the  courting — at  which  you 
are  now  so  clever — you  will  find  yourself  indulg- 
ing in  retrospect  just  as  I  do.  Narcissa's  debut 
at  Howgate  was  not  marked  by  unusual  brill- 
iancy; but  the  distance  from  our  city  was  short, 
and  one  of  us  was  pretty  sure  to  be  with  her 
during  the  better  part  of  the  day.  Occasionally, 
to  my  regret,  two  of  us  were  in  attendance  to  do 
her  work,  and  that  was  a  state  of  things  much  to 
be  deplored.  Mornings  and  evenings,  however, 
owing  to  the  peculiarities  of  the  railroad  time- 
table, she  was  alone,  and  as  she  tumbled  out  our 
call  and  signed,  the  effect  was  demoralizing. 
The  signal  for  Howgate  was  "  Hw,"  and  Kar- 
cissa  favored  extremely  long  dashes.  The  "  II  " 
generally  came  staggering  in  with  moderate 
safety,    but   her   manner   of   adding   the   "  W  " 


110  NAKCISSA. 

gave  her  call  a  weird,  sad  sound,  suggestive  of  a 
clime  where  the  thermometer  would  be  inade- 
quate. Sometimes,  in  a  fit  of  generosity  with  her 
dots,  she  rendered  it  "  pell."  Rut  our  periods  of 
depression  were  only  transient;  for  on  seeing  her 
we  straightway  forgot  her  infirmities  of  skill,  and 
sat  and  feasted  our  eyes  on  her  surpassing  beauty. 
Through  one  entire  summer  we  vibrated  between 
adoration  of  Narcissa  and  disenchantment,  be- 
cause of  her  peculiarities,  telegraphic  and  other- 
wise. 

Fred  Ford,  who  was  the  oldest  of  us  all,  ceased 
his  attentions  one  September  day  for  personal 
reasons.  He  plumed  himself  on  his  accurate  and 
finished  sending.  Visiting  Narcissa  in  the  after- 
noon, he  found  a  message  undelivered  which  he 
had  sent  in  the  morning.  "  This  message  was 
addressed  to  Miss  H.  A.  Sherman,  not  as  you 
have  it — to  Miss  Hasherman,"  said  Fred. 
"  That  was  the  way  you  sent  it,"  said  Narcissa, 
demurely.  "Oh!  I  dare  say,"  returned  Fred, 
sarcastically.  "  Have  you  notified  New  York  yet 
that  you  failed  to  find  Miss  Hasherman?"  he 
inquired.  "  That  would  have  disclosed  the 
error.      No,    indeed,"    she    replied,    carelessly; 


NAKCISSA.  Ill 

"the  message  is  paid;  I  didn't  fret  myself 
about  it."  Fred  was  not  entertaining  in  the 
interval  to  train -time,  and  Xarcissa,  I  fear, 
pouted  a  little.  Fred  regretted  his  quick  temper 
afterward,  I  think.  Narcissa  had  probably  been 
told  on  good  authority  that  money  was  the 
objective  point  in  the  telegraph  business,  and  the 
message  being  prepaid,  she  regarded  it  a  small 
matter  whether  or  not  it  was  delivered.  Fred 
used  to  say,  sometimes,  that  he  was  going  to 
make  it  ujj  with  her,  but  when  the  war  broke  out 
he  went  away  suddenly,  requesting  me  to  tell 
Xarcissa  he  sent  her  his  love. 

Ned  Jones  retired  as  an  admirer  along  in 
October,  after  attempting  thirty-seven  times,  one 
day,  to  get  the  signature  "  A.  H.  Okie  ''  to  a 
station  on  Xarcissa's  wire.  She  was  anxious  to 
obtain  circuit,  and  to  her,  in  common  with  a 
great  many  of  her  sex,  "  0.  K. "  was  the  signal 
to  claim  it. 

Poor  Neddy!  I  think  he  loved  Xarcissa;  but 
he  was  more  fastidious  than  the  rest  of  us,  and  he 
"died  of  a  color  in  aesthetic  pain,"  figuratively 
speaking,  and  relinquished  her.  Xarcissa's 
orthography    was   defective,    a    point    on    which 


112  NAECISSA 

Billy  Jackson  was  "  more  nice  than  wise,"  as  she 
afterward  expressed  it.  In  a  note  to  him  she 
spoke  of  "  fenses,"  the  "new-mown  gras,"  and 
invited  him  to  "  com  down  on  Sundy  and  go 
gathering  furns."  Dear  particular  Jack!  he 
couldn't  stand  it;  and  that  Sabbath  and  many 
others  have  glided  by  without  his  giving  his 
attention  to  the  ferns  at  Howgate. 

"  It  is  no  use,  my  boy,"  he  said,  gloomily; 
"  she  is  a  beauty  and  a  darling,  and  I  can  endure 
her  telegraphing  and  all  that,  but  when  she 
attempts  to  foist  her  phonetic  system  of  spelling 
on  me,  I  won't  have  it.  I  am  not  a  believer  in 
phonetics,  and  Narcissa  is  not  for  me.  Woo  her 
yourself,  and  win  her.  She  may  call  you  her 
'  dier;'  but  you  are  a  philosopher,  and  don't 
strain  at  gnats,  as  you  are  fond  of  telling  us." 

Jack  was  a  sad  dog,  and  he  went  off  laughing 
at  me. 

Thus  out  of  the  five  only  George  Hunter  and  I 
remained  stanch  to  the  divinity  at  Howgate.  We 
were  sworn  friends,  and  had  been  for  years,  but 
we  quarreled  about  Narcissa  at  last.  It  was  on  a 
dull  December  day  that  we  proceeded  into  the 
suburbs  to   fight  it   out.     We   compromised   on 


NARCISSA 


XARCISSA.  113 

talking  it  over,  and  when  we  parted  we  had 
promised  not  to  visit  or  write  to  Narcissa  for  six 
months.  At  the  end  of  that  time  we  were  to 
compare  notes  and  determine  upon  our  future 
action.  Idly  done.  Before  five  months  had 
passed  Hunter  had  become  engaged  to  his  present 
wife,  and  I  was  assiduously  besieging  the  heart  of 
a  lady  operator,  and  she  worked  not  at  Howgate. 
All  of  the  old  force  deserted  Providence  within 
a  year  or  two,  and  Karcissa  was  left  behind  us. 
But  she  long  since  left  Howgate,  and  her  suc- 
cessor was  unable  to  tell  me,  as  were  also  her  old 
neighbors  at  Foxboro,  when  I  inquired  whither 
she  had  gone.  There  are  four  sober-going  mar- 
ried men,  however,  who  must  always  remember 
Xarcissa  as  a  vision  of  loveliness,  and  in  whose 
foolish  old  hearts  there  are  sometimes  longings  to 
view  once  more  her  lovely  girlish  face.  Fred 
Ford  is  one  of  those  of  whom  Mr.  Aldrich  says: 

"The  long  years  come,  but  they 

Come  not  again. "' 

He  was  killed  at  An  detain,  and  sleeps  beneath 

the  "  unremembering  grass  "  now  waving  where 

erstwhile  the  battle  roared.     We  hoped  once  that 

he  would  return  and  marry  Narcissa;  but  that  is 


114:  NARCISSI 

past,  and  we  can  only  invoke  her  image.  We  do 
that  often,  and  her  bright,  piquant  face  illu- 
minates and  makes  beautiful  the  rich  and  splen- 
did past,  until  we  become  four  very  proud 
partners  in  a  memory  as  sweet  and  witching  as 
an  evening  breeze  on  which  comes  wafted  the 
odor  of  mignonette. 


AN  AGREEABLE  SAUNTERER. 


AX  AGREEABLE  SAUNTERER. 


James  Dulix,  practical  printer  and  cosmo- 
politan., was  a  type  of  a  class.  I  speak  of  him  in 
the  past  tense,  because  the  scenes  which  knew 
him  once  know  him  no  more;  and  it  is  almost 
certain  that  his  wanderings  are  over,  and  in  some 
quiet  nook,  lying  between  the  Gulf  Stream  and 
the  golden  sands  of  the  Pacific,  his  peaceful  dust 
reposes.  I  trust  that  fate  dealt  kindly  with  him 
and  closed  his  cheerful  being  in  no  unfavored 
spot,  where  the  winter  winds  sweep  mournfully 
above  the  dead.  Rather  let  me  indulge  the  sweet 
belief  that  he  fell  asleep  in  some  genial  clime, 
where  the  long  grass  growing  above  him  is  stirred 
only  by  kindly  breezes,  and  where  the  flowers 
exhale  their  fragrance  from  June  to  June. 

My  acquaintance  with  Dulin  began  in  Provi- 
dence a  few  years  after  the  close  of  the  great  civil 

conflict — probably  in  1870.     I  was  at  the  time 

(117; 


118  AN    AGREEABLE   SAUNTERER. 

the  hopeful  editor  of  a  struggling  daily  news- 
paper, which  has  since  succumbed  to  the  in- 
evitable, after  a  praiseworthy  but  futile  attempt 
to  convince  the  Democracy  of  Rhode  Island  that 
it  was  worthy  of  encouragement  and  support. 
The  portly  and  punctilious  ship-news  reporter, 
Mr.  Tilley,  complained  to  me  one  afternoon  that 
the  regular  marine-news  compositor  was  absent 
on  one  of  his  periodical  enterprises,  the  objective 
point  of  which  was  to  demonstrate,  to  his  own 
satisfaction,  that  sorrow  may  be  effectually  buried 
by  recourse  to  the  flowing  bowl.  The  complain- 
ant added  that  "  something  must  be  done,"  as 
the  new  incumbent  was  making  the  ship-news 
simply  ridiculous  by  his  mischievous  blunders  in 
reading  copy.  Mr.  Tilley  then  proceeded  to 
descant  on  the  plainness  of  his  manuscript,  and 
appealed  to  me  to  corroborate  his  claim  that  his 
handwriting  was  as  legible  as  reprint.  I  assented 
to  the  proposition,  but  with  a  colossal  mental 
reservation,  for  Mr.  Tilley  usually  wrote  with  a 
dull-pointed  lead-pencil  about  half  an  inch  in 
length,  and  his  writing  bore  about  the  same 
relation  to  penmanship  that  the  pot-hooks  and 
trammels  used  by  the  short-hand  reporters  of  old 


AN"  AGREEABLE  SAUNTERER.       119 

bear  to  the  modern  and  thoroughly  perfected  sys- 
tem of  stenography.  But  feeling  sorry  for  the 
genial  and  kindly  soul  who  had  come  to  me  for 
sympathy,  I  volunteered  to  go  upstairs  and  see  if 
some  improvement  could  not  be  had.  This  pro- 
posal was  rather  impatiently  received,  Mr.  Tilley 
ejaculating  sharply:  "  You  can't  do  anything 
with  him.  He  won't  say  anything  but  '  Kayrect.' 
I  wrote  yesterday  that  the  schooner  '  Jane  Mont- 
gomery '  had  arrived  with  three  hundred  carboys 
for  Chambers  &  Calder.  It  was  printed  three 
hundred  cabbages.  Everybody  is  laughing  at 
me.  It  is  shameful  that,  after  forty  years'  ex- 
perience as  a  marine  reporter,  I  should  fall  into 
the  clutches  of  an  irresponsible  tramp  printer  and 
be  made  to  arrive  cabbages  for  one  of  the  largest 
drug  houses  in  this  section." 

By  this  time  the  old  gentleman  was  walking  up 
and  down  the  room,  greatly  excited. 

"  And  when  I  went  to  him  and  remonstrated," 
cried  Mr.  Tillev,  "  what  does  the  loafer  do  but 
wink  at  me!  Yes,  sir,  he  winked  at  me,  and 
said:  '  Don't  distress  yourself,  uncle;  no  one  ever 
reads  the  ship  news  slop.  Such  skulch  is  printed, 
when   used   at   all,  to  flatter  the  vanity  of  old 


120       AN  AGREEABLE  SAUNTERER. 

fossils  like  you  who  can't  do  anything  else  but 
spy  out  vessels'  names  through  a  glass.  You 
don't  seem  to  understand  it;  the  publisher  has 
no  real  need  for  you;  he  just  lets  you  fool  with 
the  ship-news  rather  than  hurt  your  feelings  by 
putting  you  on  a  pension.  If  I  were  running 
this  paper,  I  would  have  you  jmt  on  the  retired 
list  as  early  as  1847.'  Heavens  and  earth!  I  let 
into  him  after  that  speech,"  concluded  the 
speaker,  whose  face  now  rivaled  the  hue  of  a  well- 
boiled  lobster. 

"  And  he  promised  to  be  more  careful  in  the 
future?"  I  inquired. 

"  Careful!  Not  he.  He  just  winked  at  me 
again — a  plague  on  his  familiar  winking — and 
said,  'Kayrect.'"  With  this  Mr.  Tilley  seized 
his  spy-glass  and  note-book,  and  passed  out, 
slamming  the  door  after  him. 

When  I  had  once  more  demolished  the  preten- 
sions of  the  Republican  Party  in  a  column 
article,  and  had  produced  accompanying  para- 
graphs and  political  notes  to  fill  the  regular 
amount  of  space  devoted  to  my  use,  I  took  my 
copy  and  climbed  a  pair  of  untidy  stairs  leading 
to  the  composing-room. 


AN  AGREEABLE   SAUNTERER.  121 

"  Who  is  slug  nine  while  Wilcox  is  absent?''  I 
inquired,  addressing  collectively  the  dozen  or 
fifteen  men  who  had  been  throwing  in  their  cases, 
and  who  were  waiting  for  the  copy  which  I  held 
in  my  hand.  A  compauionable-looking  man  of 
about  thirty  years,  in  broken  boots,  a  frilled  shirt, 
and  a  vest  and  pantaloons  which  proclaimed  as 
distinctly  as  tongueless  clothes  could  speak  that 
they  were  originally  intended  to  adorn  a  differ- 
ently proportioned  person  than  their  present 
wearer,  stepped  forward,  and  said,  pleasantly: 
"  I  am  slug  nine — James  Dulin;  I've  got  a  work- 
ing card,  and  I'm  in  good  standing  with  the 
Union." 

"In  better  standing  with  the  Union  than  with 
Mr.  Tilley,  perhaps/'  I  said,  smiling.  Dulin 
had  taken  the  first  page  of  manuscript  and  had 
gone  to  his  case  while  I  was  speaking.  I  fol- 
lowed him. 

"  The  fact  is,"  he  said,  good-naturedly,  and 
with  an  inoffensive  degree  of  freedom  which  indi- 
cated that  in  his  opinion,  at  least,  there  could  not 
possibly  be  any  lack  of  sympathy  between  gentle- 
men like  him  and  me,  "  the  fact  is,  the  old 
party  with  the  telescope  and  that  stub-toed  lead- 


122  AN   AGREEABLE    SAUJSTTERER. 

pencil  doesn't   turn   out  just    the    stuff    for  a 
stranger  to  tackle.     I'm  all  right   on  '  straight 
matter,'  like  this  truck  of  yours.     If  it  were  not 
good  manuscript— which  it  is— I  would  still  be  all 
right.     But  old  Carboy   is  a  tough  citizen  as  a 
quill-driver,  I  can  tell  you.     He  came  up  here 
when  I  was  new  and  nervous,  talking  about  those 
cabbages,  and  he  wasn't  very  choice  in  his  lan- 
guage.    I   wished   to  respect  his  age,  and   said 
nothing  until  he  told  me  he  was  a  '  comp.'    That 
pricked   my  professional   pride,  and   I   lost   my 
temper.     Bless  his  crabbed  old  soul,  he  couldn't 
stick  type  in  these  days;  and  1  told  him  so.     I 
reckon  he  doesn't  like  me  pretty  well  from  what 
he    said,'-    Dulin    added,   thoughtfully,    "but   I 
can't  help   it,     The   old    and   the   new  do   not 
assimilate,  you  know.    He  thinks  I  am  too  young 
for  the   responsible   task  of  setting  his  matter; 
while  in  my  judgment  he  should  have  been  planted 
twenty  years   ago.     He  doesn't   seem  to   see  it; 
but,  really,  Methuselahs   are  not   in  fashion  in 
this  nineteenth  century.     It  is  too  progressive  an 
age  to  admit  of  our  encouraging  the  veteran  to 
any  great  extent.     In  fact,  the  veteran,  as  has 
been  remarked  before,  is  inclined  to  lag  reluctant 


AN   AGREEABLE   SAUNTERER.  L23 

oil  the  stage  without  any  special  inducements." 
After  a  very  pleasant  talk,  in  the  course  of  which 
I  cautioned  Dulin  against  making  any  further 
errors  in  Mr.  Tilley's  reports  of  the  same  absurd 
character  as  the  one  which  had  annoyed  the  old 
gentleman  so  greatly,  I  left  the  room.  As  I 
passed  into  the  hall  I  heard  Dulin  ejaculate  with 
a  somewhat  irrelevant  prefix  that  he  "  couldn't 
set  type  on  an  empty  stomach."  One  of  the 
other  compositors  dropped  his  stick  in  astonish- 
ment, and  replied: 

"  Why,  I  lent  you  some  money  to  get  break- 
fast with,  didn't  I?" 

"Yes,"  said  Dulin,  as  he  went  to  the  "gal- 
ley "  and  emptied  a  stickful  of  matter  before  any 
of  his  companions  had  set  half  as  much,  "yes, 
you  lent  me  money.  It  was  very  kind  of  you, 
too,  Eben;  but  an  empty  '  comp  '  can't  spread 
himself  on  fifteen  cents." 

"  But  it  was  half  a  dollar  I  gave  you,"  pursued 
Eben. 

"  Kayrect,"  responded  Dulin,  "  but  I  paid  out 
thirty-five  cents  of  it  for  getting  my  mustache 
painted." 

I  then  noticed  for  the  first  time,  as  Dulin  re- 


124  AN    AGREEABLE    SAUNTERER. 

turned  to  his  case  and  transferred  the  type  to  his 
stick  with  marvelous  rapidity,  that  his  mustache 
had  indeed  just  received  an  application  which 
gave  it  the  appearance  of  a  very  inky  tooth- 
brush. This  exhibition  of  vulgar  taste  on  Dulin's 
part  hurt  my  feelings;  but  when  the  "proofs'1 
came  down  to  the  editorial-room  that  night  for 
correction,  and  never  an  error,  typographical  or 
otherwise,  discovered  itself  under  slug  nine,  I 
yielded  him  his  full  due  of  admiration,  and  went 
home  well  fortified  in  my  belief  that  he  was  a 
real  acquisition  to  the  paper,  and  half  convinced 
that  if  a  man  wished  to  dye  his  subnasal  ap- 
pendage and  make  himself  ridiculous,  it  was 
nobody's  business  but  his  own. 

Dulin  made  his  reputation  very  rapidly,  and  at 
the  end  of  a  month,  having  made  "  large  bills," 
he  indulged  his  taste  for  fashionable  attire  by 
giving  his  order  to  the  leading  tailor  for  "  a  com- 
plete outfit,"  as  he  expressed  it.  A  few  weeks 
later  he  left  town.  Meeting  him  on  the  street 
and  hearing  his  determination  to  take  the  train 
for  New  York  that  evening,  I  accompanied  him 
to  the  station.  As  the  train  was  about  to  start,  he 
quietly  observed: 


A3ST   AGREEABLE    SAEXTEKER.  125 

"  I  heard  what  you  said  about  it.  It  did  sort 
of  size  my  intellect;  but,  somehow,  it  never 
struck  me  that  way  before.  If  you  ever  see  me 
again  it  will  show  up  straw-color  as  nature  made 
it.  We  learn  mighty  slowly,  particularly  in  these 
matters  of  taste,  old  man;  and  I've  never  had  so 
much  of  a  chance  as  some  men  to — " 

The  train  moved  off,  thus  abbreviating  his  dis- 
course as  quoted  above,  and  leaving  me,  blushing 
and  embarrassed,  to  learn  that  anything  I  had 
said  of  his  inclination  to  avail  himself  of  the 
friendly  offices  of  nitrate  of  silver  had  reached  his 
ears. 

The  delicate  health  of  The  Plantation  Har- 
binger— it  was  always  in  pecuniary  distress — 
together  with  a  longing  to  display  my  energy 
and  journalistic  blandishments  in  a  wider  field, 
ultimately  persuaded  me  to  seek  my  fortune  in 
New  York.  I  met  Dulin  occasionally  in  Printing 
House  Square,  and  came  to  learn  by  degrees  that 
the  Dulin  of  my  imagination  and  the  real  Dulin 
possessed  remarkable  j)oints  of  difference.  The 
discovery  made  me  melancholy  at  first — it  is  very 
saddening  to  see  our  idols  clashed  before  our  very 
eyes.     But  there  was  no  escape  for  me;  and  little 


126  AN   AGREEABLE   SAUNTERER. 

by  little  I  learned  Dulin's  history  and  some  of  his 
ways,  and  became  reconciled  to  the  inevitable. 
It  appeared  that,  notwithstanding  he  was  an 
expert  compositor  and  had  performed  splendid 
service  on  many  occasions  when  the  emergency  of 
the  moment  demanded  it,  he  very  rarely  soiled 
his  fingers  by  bringing  them  in  contact  with 
prosaic  type.  I  was  told  that  he  was  a  telegraph 
operator  as  well  as  a  compositor,  and  that  his 
crowning  glory  was  one  of  the  sweetest  tenor 
voices  to  be  heard  this  side  of  Italy.  It  trans- 
pired that  he  relied  upon  his  telegraphic  relations 
for  the  procurement  of  railroad  passes  from  time 
to  time,  upon  his  skill  as  a  printer  to  obtain  what 
money  was  necessary  to  meet  his  pressing  wants, 
and  upon  his  ability  to  tell  an  amusing  story  or 
sing  a  song  to  advance  his  social  interests.  He 
was  well  groomed  and  characterized  by  an  air  of 
genteel  prosperity.  Having  incidentally  told  me 
a  month  after  my  arrival  that  he  was  looking  for 
a  boarding-place,  I  invited  him  to  share  my  own 
room  and  take  his  meals  with  me  until  he  could 
make  some  better  arrangement.  He  cordially 
adopted  my  suggestion,  and  made  me  a  longer 
visit  than  I  had  expected  he  would.     But  he  was 


AN   AGREEABLE   SAUNTERER.  L27 

always  cheerful  and  deferential,  and  his  society 
was  rather  pleasant  and  desirable,  although  the 
discharge  of  my  indebtedness,  incurred  on  his 
account,  added  to  my  own  expenses,  made  sad 
havoc  with  my  slender  income.  He  finally 
gathered  his  impedimenta  together  one  morning, 
and  simply  saying:  "  Au  revoir,  if  I  shouldn't 
come  back  again,"  passed  out  of  doors,  softly 
whistling  an  air  from  "  Mignon."  That  was  the 
last  I  saw  of  him  for  two  years.  I  renewed  my 
acquaintance  with  him  as  he  stepped  out  of  a 
coupe  in  front  of  the  Hoffman  House  one  Septem- 
ber morning.  He  insisted  that  I  should  break- 
fast with  him.  We  talked  upon  every  conceiv- 
able subject;  and  he  casually  mentioned,  as  we 
separated,  that  he  bad  just  returned  from 
Havana,  where  he  had  been  the  guest  of  a 
wealthy  Kew  York  merchant.  I  never  saw  him 
afterward,  though  for  some  years  later  I  heard  of 
him  at  intervals — sometimes  in  one  locality  and 
again  in  another — always  well  fed,  fairly  clothed, 
and  invariably  popular. 

When  Dulin  told  me  he  bad  been  the  guest  of 
a  generous  host  in  Havana  I  was  not  surprised, 
for  it  was  as  the  honored  guest  of  somebody  or 


128  AN    AGREEABLE   SAUNTERER. 

other  that  he  generally  figured.  In  his  day  he 
had  tarried  for  indefinite  periods  beneath  the  hos- 
pitable roofs  of  reporters,  city  editors,  publishers, 
telegraph  superintendents,  railroad  magnates  and 
their  subordinates.  He  had  an  especial  fondness 
for  railroad  and  steamboat  people;  and  in  his 
latter  days,  when  "  passes  ''  were  difficult  to  get, 
he  continued  his  travels  just  the  same,  depending 
upon  his  linguistic  accomplishments  to  remove 
the  obstacles  to  riding  free  which  lie  in  the  way 
of  ordinary  mortals.  Once  in  a  long  time  a 
newly  appointed  conductor  would  compel  him  to 
leave  the  train;  but  he  boarded  the  next  one  that 
came  along,  and  improved  the  time  placed  at  his 
disposal  by  these  enforced  delays,  by  a  tour  of 
the  town,  if  he  happened  to  debark  at  a  metropo- 
lis, or  by  going  out  into  the  fields  and  watching 
the  flight  of  the  birds,  noting  the  methods  of  the 
husbandman,  or  listening  to  the  hum  of  the 
bees,  if  it  were  his  good  fortune  to  be  stranded  at 
a  way-station. 

But  in  spite  of  his  tendency  to  visit,  Dulin 
rarely,  if  ever,  wore  his  welcome  entirely  out. 
He  seemed  to  know  by  intuition  when  the  pleas- 
ure his  presence  gave  was  waning,  and  at  the 


AN   AGREEABLE   SAUNTEREE.  129 

proper  moment  he  departed.  Unless  he  had  been 
invited  elsewhere,  he  would  repair  to  some  demo- 
cratic resort  of  entertainment  where  the  admis- 
sion and  music  were  free  and  where  the  beverages 
were  dispensed  at  nominal  prices.  Here,  assum- 
ing an  attitude  of  respectful  attention,  he  would 
await  with  stoical  patience  the  rosy  opportunity 
which  never  failed  to  come.  If  he  were  disap- 
pointed on  the  first  night,  he  would  go  again,  and 
ultimately  the  hour  arrived  when  the  tenor  of  the 
occasion  was  indisposed  or  inebriated,  and  the  cry 
would  be  raised:  "  We  must  have  a  song!  Who 
can  sing  a  song?"  Rising  modestly,  Dulin  would 
say  in  an  unobtrusive  way,  that  his  voice  was 
husky  from  long  disuse;  that  the  words  of  many 
of  the  songs  he  had  once  known  had  escaped  his 
memory,  but  that,  if  it  were  agreeable,  he  would 
try  and  sing,  "  T  Would  I  Were  a  Bird." 

His  vocal  performances  never  failed  to  elicit 
invitations  to  eat  and  drink,  and  then,  warmed 
by  a  moderate  quantity  of  stimulant  and  re-en- 
forced by  a  larger  amount  of  digestible  food  than 
had  surprised  his  inner  man  since  his  departure 
from  the  gates  of  his  most  recent  entertainer,  he 
would  sing,  "  Come  Where  My  Love  Lies  Dream- 

5 


130  AN    AGREEABLE    SAUNTERER. 

ing,"  "Annie  Laurie,"  and  other  ensnaring 
ballads.  And  he  sung  in  tones  so  sympathetic, 
and  with  an  art  so  utterly  devoid  of  art,  that  he 
brought  tears  to  his  hearers'  eyes,  and  invariably 
attracted  to  his  side  some  impressionable  fellow- 
being  who,  for  the  nonce,  had  forgotten  the  price 
of  pork  or  of  candles,  and  was  giving  his  soul  a 
holiday  by  seeking  the  scenes  where  beer  and 
song  held  sway.  These  appreciative  and  unso- 
phisticated sons  of  trade,  who  seldom  visited  the 
halls  of  jollity  and  wassail,  and  to  whom  men  of 
Dulin's  sort  were  as  a  revelation,  were  his  natural 
victims.  "You  have  a  splendid  voice,  sir." 
"  That  was  a  touching  song,  young  man,"  and 
similar  observations  were  cues  for  which  Dulin 
was  ever  watchful.  He  never  took  the  initiative, 
but  waited  with  a  degree  of  reticence  almost 
touching  for  overtures  from  those  whom  he  had 
mentally  selected  as  a  means  to  his  future  aggran- 
dizement. Winning  in  manner,  deferential  and 
responsive,  he  seldom  failed  to  become  the  guest 
of  whomsoever,  entertaining  the  opinion  that  his 
voice  was  good,  was  indiscreet  enough  to  men- 
tion it. 

To  an  acquaintance  who  had  taken  a  position 


A2JT  AGREEABLE  SAUNTERER.  131 

as  station  agent  and  telegraph  operator  on  the 
Union  Pacific  Railroad,  Dulin  once  wrote  as  fol- 
lows: 

"  My  dear  Proctor,— My  luck  has  changed 
again;  my  star  is  dim,  and  I  am  going  West.  I 
am  not  in  funds,  but  I  hope  to  close  the  weary 
expanse  lying  between  us  in  the  course  of  the 
next  twenty  days.  The  itinerant  telegraphers 
have  of  late  been  showing  a  preference  for  the 
turnpike,  and  they  give  somber  accounts  of  the 
methods  which  the  modern  conductor  is  develop- 
ing in  the  absence  of  transportation  papers.  But 
I  fancy  the  conductor's  heart  is  as  green  as  ever, 
and  has  only  taken  on  a  veneering  of  brusque- 
ness,  so  to  speak,  in  pretended  recognition  of  the 
prevailing  tendency,  on  the  part  of  his  superior 
officers,  to  adopt  a  parsimonious  and  grinding 
policy  toward  the  public,  looking  to  an  increased 
return  for  money  invested  and  the  augmentation 
of  railroad  power.  In  any  event,  I  have  no 
dreams  of  pedestrianic  honors  as  an  outcome  of 
my  contemplated  pilgrimage  toward  the  setting 
sun.  Humanity  is  all  of  one  clay — only  the  out- 
ward limbs  and  flourishes  are  variant.     Once  we 


132      AN  AGREEABLE  SAUNTERER. 

reach  a  man's  core  all  is  won;  and  the  conductor 
is  no  exception  to  this  universal  rule.  In  my 
occasional  ramblings  from  New  York  to  the 
Pacific  coast,  and  from  Montreal  to  Galveston, 
the  average  conductor  has  proven  to  my  satisfac- 
tion that  he  is  a  credit  to  humanity;  and  in 
thrusting  myself  upon  his  attention  now,  I  trust, 
by  tarrying  over  a  train  now  and  again  at  points 
where  the  attractions  of  the  town  or  the  beauty 
of  the  landscape  merit  the  attention  of  an  in- 
dolent tourist,  to  grasp  your  cordial  hand  about 
the  seventh  proximo.  Across  the  yawning 
chasm  of  space  which  lies  between  us — two 
thousand  three  hundred  miles,  according  to 
'  Rand  McNally  ' — I  send  my  greeting.  I  prom- 
ise myself  great  pleasure  during  the  week  I  hope 
to  pass  with  you  before  leaving  for  the  remoter 
West.  God  bless  you,  my  boy,  and  if  you  ever 
pray,  don't  fail  to  remember  in  your  devotion 
that  I  have  undertaken  a  long  journey  and  that  a 
prayer  or  two  may  help  to  pull  me  through  on 
time." 

Fifteen  days  after  the  receipt  of  Dulin's  letter, 
and  somewhat  to  his  friend's  surprise,  he  stepped 


AN"    AGREEABLE    SAUXTERER.  133 

gayly  from  a  westward  bound  train  at  Bridger; 
and  after  making  a  ten-days'  stop,  he  proceeded 
onward  to  Virginia  City,  to  take  up  the  long- 
dropped  threads  of  an  acquaintance  with  Dan  De 
Quille,  and  test  the  quality  of  that  gentleman's 
hospitality.  During  his  stay  at  Bridger  he 
feasted  royally  on  canned  oysters  and  other 
delicacies  suited  to  his  cultivated  tastes,  He 
was  always  entertaining,  and  his  society  was 
much  sought.  His  bill  amounted  to  thirty-eight 
dollars,  but  it  was  cheerfully  paid  by  his  enter- 
tainer, and  while  his  departure  was  not  regretted, 
his  friend  would  not  have  hastened  it  by  an  hour 
if  he  could.  Indeed,  so  nicely  did  Dulin  balance 
everything  that  his  arrivals  and  departures 
seemed  to  be  in  accordance  with  the  eternal 
fitness  of  things;  and  no  one  ever  seemed  to 
regret  anything  which  happened  on  his  account. 

I  have  been  impelled  to  write  this  desultory 
paper  by  accidentally  coming  upon  a  bright  bit 
of  humorous  writing  by  a  Western  philosopher, 
affecting  the  proposition  which  has  so  long  gone 
unchallenged,  viz.:  "The  world  owes  me  a 
living."  This  writer  says:  "  The  world  may  owe 
you  a  living,  son,  if  you  can  get  it.     But  if  you 


134  AST   AGKEEABLE   SAUNTERER. 

are  not  spry,  the  world  doesn't  care  much 
whether  you  get  it  or  not.  The  world  got  along, 
son,  very  well  before  you  came  iuto  it;  and  it 
will  continue  to  whirl  on  its  axis  when  you  are 
gone."  This  is  sound  doctrine;  it  is  a  sensible 
every-day  philosophy,  which  can  be  safely  fol- 
lowed by  ordinary  travelers  along  life's  great 
highway,  and  I  subscribe  to  it  unhesitatingly  and 
with  all  my  heart.  But  what,  I  wonder,  would 
James  Dulin  have  thought  of  it?  What  would 
those  who  belong  to  the  class  of  which  he  was  a 
type  say  to  such  simple  teachings? 

I  can  easily  imagine  the  scorn  with  which 
Dulin  would  have  regarded  such  an  assumption. 
And  when  I  remember  his  successful  pursuit  of 
what  he  conceived  to  be  the  highest  order  of  hap- 
piness, I  am  inclined  to  doubt  the  truth  of  his 
own  proposition,  that  "  humanity  is  all  of  one 
clay."  Perhaps,  just  as  there  are  religious 
natures  so  peculiarly  constructed  as  forms  to 
despise,  creeds  to  distrust,  pretensions  to  deride, 
there  are  men  possessed  of  mental  organizations 
differing  so  radically  from  the  general  one  that 
they  work  out  their  individual  destinies  by  a 
violation  of  those  moral  laws  and  conceded  prin- 


AN  AGREEABLE  SAUNTERER.      135 

ciples  through  an  observance  of  which  the 
majority  attain  happiness,  prosperity  and  honor. 
Dulin  achieved  those  ends,  undoubtedly,  by  his 
own  unorthodox  means;  for  with  him  it  was  hap- 
piness to  be  a  transient  guest,  prosperity  to  travel 
across  the  Continent  without  the  formality  of 
purchasing  a  ticket,  and  honor  of  the  superbest 
quality  to  resemble  the  lilies  which  neither  toil 
nor  spin, 


POP  DONALDSON. 


POP  DONALDSON. 


I  saw  him  last  summer,  working  a  third-class 
wire  in  the  Boston  office.  In  reply  to  my  in- 
quiry, the  chief  operator  informed  me  that  Don- 
aldson had  been  given  employment  the  day 
before.  I  met  the  old  boy  on  the  stairs  later  in 
the  day,  and  he  said  in  a  weak  voice:  "  Yes,  I 
am  back  here  again,  what  there  is  left  of  me. 
My  drinking  days  are  over,  and  /am  about  over, 
too."  He  certainly  looked  bad,  and  I  said  to 
myself:  "If  consumption  hasn't  marked  you  for 
its  own,  your  appearance  belies  you."  My  gaze 
went  wandering  away  from  him  as  he  said,  sadly: 
'  I  can't  telegraph  very  well  any  more.  My 
hand  shakes,  and  it  is  like  sawing  wood  for  me  to 
work  a  wire — even  a  way  wire."  Then  he  left 
me  and  pursued  his  way  upstairs  to  the  operat- 
ing-room. Old  Pop  Donaldson  is  not  more  than 
thirty-five  years  of  age,  but  he  has  burned  the 


1130) 


140  POP    DONALDSON. 

candle  at  both  ends,  and  his  nervous  system  is 
fatally  wrecked.  He  has  fallen  into  a  decline  of 
late  years,  and  there  remains  for  him  nothing,  I 
fear,  but  the  bitter  dregs  of  existence. 

Away  back  in  the  sixties,  when  I  was  a  mere 
lad  endeavoring  to  master  the  mysteries  of  teleg- 
raphy, Donaldson  was  in  his  prime.  He  was 
regarded  as  one  of  the  finest  telegraphers  in  the 
country,  and  at  the  time  I  first  knew  him  he  had 
just  completed  his  twenty-first  year.  I  doubt  if 
many  young  men  who  have  their  way  to  make  in 
the  world  attain  their  majority  under  fairer 
auspices  than  he  did.  Intelligent,  fine-looking, 
and  the  master  of  a  profession  which  at  that  time 
was  counted  as  one  of  the  fine  arts  almost,  he 
had,  apparently,  an  enviable  future  before  him. 
Indeed,  if  I  had  been  told  in  those  dear  old  days 
that  I  would  eventually  reach  what  seemed,  in 
my  boyish  eyes,  a  pinnacle  of  glory — such  as  he 
occupied — I  should  have  been  more  surprised  and 
pleased  than  I  could  be  now  over  any  prospect  of 
future  prosperity  short  of  a  tight  hold  on  Para- 
dise. 

Somebody  has  recently  written  a  poem  in 
which  two  tramps  figure.     One  inquires  on  meet- 


POP    DONALDSON.  Ill 

ing  the  other  if  there  is  no  shade-tree  near  at 
hand,  and  the  second  replies:  "  Yes,  a  little 
further  down  the  road. "  The  writer  elaborates 
this  idea,  and  says  we  are  all  tramps,  looking  for 
a  shade-tree.  In  his  view,  it  is  always  further 
down  the  road,  and  but  few  of  us  ever  reach  it. 
The  idea  is  well  enough,  hut  the  view  is  too  pes- 
simistic to  please  me.  I  believe,  on  the  contrary, 
that  we  are  rather  like  children  straying  through 
a  house  in  which  there  are  many  rooms  of  ex- 
quisite loveliness,  each  more  beautiful  than  the 
preceding  one.  Outside  of  the  mansion  we  think 
we  would  be  content  if  we  could  gain  the  hall, 
but,  once  within,  we  stray  on  and  on  with 
thoughts  intent  upon  the  possibilities  which  lie 
beyond,  and  little  heeding  the  increasing  beauty 
of  our  surroundings  since  we  left  the  threshold. 
It  is  better  that  we  should  sometimes  consider  the 
point  from  which  we  started.  The  experiment  is 
consoling,  at  all  events,  and  makes  us  philosophic 
and  more  contented  with  our  social  status. 
There  are  not  many  of  us  who  have  made  the 
most  of  our  opportunities  who  can  not  say  with 
the  Christian  of  old:  "  Oh,  God!  I  have  much  to 
be  thankful  for." 


14^  POP    DONALDSON. 

Old  Pop  Donaldson  has  not  so  much  to  be 
thankful  for  as  many,  and  that  he  has  thrown 
away  his  opportunities  is,  to  my  mind,  the  chief 
reason  therefor.  In  the  curt  vernacular  of 
Americans,  we  often  have  the  solution  of  a  prob- 
lem iu  one  word.  We  hear  of  men  in  our  own 
and  other  professions  who  have  extraordinary 
abilities,  kindly  natures,  and  many  traits  of  char- 
acter calculated  to  endear  them  to  their  acquaint- 
ances. We  are  told,  moreover,  that  they  are  at 
present  "  down  in  the  world,"  "  utterly  used 
up/'  etc.,  and  when  we  inquire  the  cause,  the 
answer  comes  with  painful  regularity  in  that  dire 
monosyllable,  "Drink.'-'  Old  Pop  Donaldson's 
failure  in  life  is  also  susceptible  of  explanation 
by  the  mention  of  that  short,  sad  word.  I  do  not 
mean  to  preach  a  temperance  sermon.  In  writ- 
ing a  sketch,  however,  of  a  man  whom  I  have 
known  and  admired,  and  through  whose  kindly 
aid  I  was  launched  on  a  career  which  I  hope  I  may 
be  pardoned  for  considering  a  moderately  useful 
one,  it  will  be  necessary  to  cite  a  few  facts. 
These  facts  stand  for  themselves.  If  they  preach 
anything,  I  can  not  help  it. 

How  old  memories  come  crowding  upon  me  as 


POP    DONALDSON.  143 

I  recall  a  lovely  Sunday  in  June,  so  far  away  that 
I  instinctively  look  in  the  mirror  to  see  "  if  the 
young  boy  is  getting  to  be  an  old  boy,"  and  if 
"  the  hair  is  growing  thin  on  the  old  boy's 
head."  I  was  early  at  the  office  that  morning, 
and  was  copying,  with  the  idea  of  becoming  an 
operator,  the  Morse  alphabet  from  Sha  liner's 
manual.  So  engrossed  was  T  with  my  work,  and 
the  difficulty  I  experienced  in  fixing  my  chubby 
fingers  around  a  pen  so  as  to  come  within  speak- 
ing distance  of  making  the  characters  conform  to 
those  in  Shaffner,  that  I  did  not  notice  that  some 
one  had  entered.  As  I  was  desperately  strug- 
gling with  the  letter  "  J,"  and  inwardly  bewail- 
ing my  lack  of  expertness  with  the  pen,  a  voice, 
which  startled  me  at  first,  but  which  1  recognized 
at  once  as  Donaldson's,  said:  "  Ho])  down  off 
that  stool,  sonny,  and  I'll  make  you  the  alpha- 
bet. "  I  quickly  surrendered  the  task  to  the  more 
experienced  fingers  of  the  new-comer,  who  had 
been  looking  over  my  shoulder,  and  took  my 
place  on  the  messengers'  bench.  Presently  Don- 
aldson handed  me  a  blank,  on  which  the  alpha- 
bet, numerals,  and  the  punctuation  points  were 
given,  and  below  them  he  had  written,  in  his  own 


144  POP    DONALDSON. 

beautifully  flowing  chirography:  "James  Brady 
gave  me  his  pretty  black  walnut  box  of  quite 
small  size."  I  bashfully  expressed  my  thanks, 
but  my  heart  was  quite  full  enough  of  gratitude 
to  have  warranted  something  better  than  I  said, 
had  I  been  able  to  give  utterance  to  my  thoughts. 
After  answering  a  call  and  taking  several  mes- 
sages, Donaldson  started  me  out,  saying  as  I 
went  to  deliver  them:  "  You  can  practice  on 
that  sentence  when  you  have  learned  to  make  the 
letters.  It  contains  all  the  characters  in  the 
alphabet."  I  have  given  that  little  story  about 
Brady  and  the  small  black  walnut  box  to  many 
aspiring  youngsters  since  then.  I  wonder  if  any 
of  them  ever  prized  it  as  highly  as  I  did  when  it 
first  became  a  part  of  my  small  stock  of  knowl- 
edge, and  I  wonder,  too,  if  among  the  small 
band  of  youths — some  of  whom  became  operators, 
while  others  failed  in  that  to  succeed  afterward 
in  other  things — there  is  one  wdio  ever  looked 
upon  me  as  a  half-human,  half-divine  personage, 
such  as  I  regarded  Donaldson.  Probably  not. 
But  if  there  be  one.  I  am  a  much  honored  man, 
for  nothing  I  can  feel  for  a  human  being  will 
ever  excel  my  enthusiasm  for  my  old  telegraphic 


POP    DONALDSON".  145 

hero.  Even  though  I  have  seen  him  often  of  late 
years  under  circumstances  which,  for  the  mo- 
ment, bereft  him  of  all  his  old-time  glory,  still  I 
go  on  remembering  him  bright,  dashing,  and 
handsome,  and  am  thankful  that  I  can.  Old 
Pop  Donaldson  is  the  stern  reality  to  nearly  all 
who  know  him  now;  but  to  me  he  is  an  abstrac- 
tion merely — a  reality  which  goes  out  of  my 
mind,  giving  place  to  my  hero  of  yore  the  mo- 
ment he  leaves  my  presence. 

Before  he  had  gone  far  on  his  downward  course 
I  had  become  an  operator,  and  worked  by  his 
side.  I  remember  that  in  one  of  his  exalted 
moods  he  took  the  color  out  of  my  existence  for 
a  month  or  more  by  a  casual  observation  which 
I  can  never  forget.  Like  many  young  operators, 
I  fancied,  long  before  I  had  perfected  myself  in 
my  business,  that  I  had  solved  the  problem.  I 
spoke  in  his  presence  to  that  effect  one  day,  and 
he  said,  with  that  charming  bluntness  which  is 
sometimes  the  result  of  an  indulgence  in  stimu- 
lants: 

"  You  will  make  a  decent  operator,  but  you 
are,  of  course,  a  frightful  stick  now."  It  cut  me 
like  a  knife;  but  I  needed  a  lesson.     Years  after- 


146  POP    DONALDSON. 

ward,  when  I  had  progressed  as  far  in  the  tele- 
graphic art  as  nature  intended  I  should  ever  go, 
I  looked  back  on  those  earlier  years  and  felt  that 
Donaldson  was  right.  I  had  finally  been  taught 
the  bitter  lesson  which  the  great  Newton  con- 
fessed to  have  learned,  and  felt  that  the  little 
knowledge  we  acquire  is  valuable  chiefly  as 
teaching  us  the  density  of  our  ignorance. 

Donaldson's  character  had  a  humorous  vein  in 
it  withal.  His  ability  as  a  "  receiver  ':  was  the 
talk  and  wonder  of  the  whole  section  in  which  he 
lived  and  wrought.  He  never  broke;  his  work 
was  accurate,  and  his  penmanship  marvelous. 
One  day  an  operator  who  copied  press  on  the 
same  wire  visited  us,  and  asked  George  how  he 
managed  to  receive  report  day  after  day  without 
ever  breaking.  Pointing  to  a  Homeric  contriv- 
ance, consisting  of  two  sounders  placed  on  a  shelf 
several  feet  away,  and  which  did  duty  as  a 
repeater  for  a  station  situated  off  the  main  line, 
Donaldson  replied,  dryly:  "  I  do  sometimes  lose  a 
word;  but  I  have  to  watch  that  thing  for  breaks, 
and  I  usually  catch  the  truant  word  before  it  wig- 
gles through  there." 

The  time  came  when  he  could  no  longer  hold 


TOP    DONALDSON".  14:7 

the  responsible  position  of  night-report  operator, 
and  he  went  West.  From  that  time  out  until 
recently  he  has  returned  to  me  at  intervals  vary- 
ing  from  six  months  to  two  years.  He  plays  the 
role  of  the  "  Friend  of  my  Youth."  He  has 
invariably  appeared  without  warning,  and  uni- 
formly in  a  state  of  impecuniosity.  Sometimes 
he  hailed  from  a  New  England  town,  where  he 
had  secured  a  month's  "  subbing;"  again  he 
came  from  some  obscure  village  on  a  branch  of 
the  Erie  Railroad,  where  he  had  been  buried  a 
year  or  two;  anon  he  spoke  of  having  just  re- 
turned from  Wyoming  Territory,  or  of  having 
last  worked  in  Texas.  But  his  appearance,  from 
whatever  direction  he  came,  always  carried  me 
back  to  the  halcyon  days  of  my  youth,  and  in- 
voked a  vision  of  a  brisk  young  man  stepping  out 
of  his  way  to  perform  a  kindly  service  for  a  round- 
faced  country  boy  come  to  the  city  to  seek  his  fort- 
une. That  picture  will  always  last.  His  wants 
have  generally  been  modest,  and  I  need  scarcely 
add  that  his  claims  on  me  have  never  failed  of 
recognition.  If,  m  opening  my  purse,  I  have 
sometimes  opened  my  lips  and  besought  him  to 
be  a  man,  it  is  but  common  justice  to  him  to  say 


148  POP    DONALDSON. 

that  he  has  invariably  promised  to  mend  his 
ways.  But  he  has  steadily  gone  down-hill,  and 
has  well-nigh  reached  the  bottom.  I  know  bet- 
ter than  scarcely  any  other  man  can  know  how 
hard  he  has  tried  to  retrace  the  steps,  taken 
under  social  pressure  years  ago,  which  have 
led  to  his  decadence,  physical  and  intellectual. 
He  has  struggled  against  a  cruel  fate,  and  has 
failed.  It  was  with  sincere  sorrow  that  I  saw 
him  in  Boston,  pale,  weak,  and  emaciated.  I 
judge  that  the  old  enemy  is  conquered  at  last; 
but  it  is  too  late.  A  more  merciless  enemy,  one 
on  whom  we  may  exhaust  strength  or  will  in 
vain,  is  obviously  preying  upon  his  shattered 
frame. 

Some  day  we  shall  read  of  his  death,  and  the 
casual  acquaintance  will  say:  "Drank  himself 
into  consumption.  Poor  fellow!  he  deserved  a 
better  end,"  and  will  think  no  more  about  him. 
But  when  the  writer  reads  that  announcement 
he  will  feel  sad  and  grieved  for  many  a  day;  for 
Donaldson  was  once  kind  to  a  boy  whose  cata- 
logue of  friends  was  limited  enough  then,  and  to 
whose  eyes  the  tears  will  start  unbidden  when 
recurring  Junes  remind  him  that  above  the  friend 


POP    DONALDSON.  140 

of  his  youth  a  mound  rises  on  which  the  daisies 
bloom  and  the  grass  waves  sadly  in  the  summer 
air. 


B  I  F. 


I        I 


H.OPPENHEIMER  cut  raTEtickET, 


"  GOOD-BYE,  JIM  ;   I  AM  OFF  FOR  OMAHA]!  " 


BIF. 


I  shall  never  forget  our  first  meeting.  It 
occurred  several  years  ago  on  the  occasion  of  my 
returning  to  No.  145  Broadway  for  the  ever-so- 
manieth  time.  He  attracted  my  attention  the 
first  night  I  worked  in  the  office,  and  when  I  had 
cleared  my  hooks,  I  went  over  and  stood  near 
where  he  was  sitting — at  the  Chicago  duplex. 
He  was  an  outre  figure  at  that  time.  The  month 
was  December,  and  the  weather  was  very  chilly, 
not  to  say  frigid,  but  my  hero  was  still  glorious 
in  a  very  light-colored  pair  of  pantaloons,  which, 
worn  without  suspenders,  ceased  their  endeavors 
to  reach  his  vest  considerably  below  the  proper 
meeting-place.  Between  his  vest  and  pantaloons 
his  shirt  protruded  like  a  balloon  stay-sail  of 
some  clipper  yacht.  I  saw  all  this  as  I  ap- 
proached from  behind;   but  it  was  not   until  I 

(158) 


154  BIF. 

walked  around  and  faced  him  that  I  noticed  he 
wore  his  vest  open,  thereby  displaying,  uninten- 
tionally I  doubt  not,  one  of  the  most  immaculate 
shirts  I  had  ever  seen.  His  natty  piccaclilly  col- 
lar, too,  kept  in  its  place  by  a  cravat  as  blue  as 
an  Italian  sky,  was  as  spotless  and  as  bravely 
ironed  and  glossed  as  the  plaited  bosom  below. 
All  this  was  surmounted  by  a  rather  large  head 
covered  with  light-brown  hair;  the  face  was 
smoothly  shaven,  the  eyes  bright  and  clear,  the 
nose  a  little  retrousse,  and  the  mouth  frank  and 
suggestive  of  unusual  individuality.  Most  of  the 
men  in  the  office  were  strangers,  and  I  addressed 
one  at  random,  who  was  working  the  Cincinnati 
wire,  asking  who  the  attractive-looking  little  fel- 
low was  who  was  working  the  Chicago  duplex. 

"  Why,  don't  you  know  him?  That's  little  old 
Cookie.     We  call  him  Bif  for  short." 

My  informant  went  on  receiving,  and  I 
walked  thoughtfully  back  to  the  Chicago  desk 
and  spoke  with  another  operator  who  was  work- 
ing the  sending  side,  watching  Bif  meantime 
over  the  top  of  the  table.  As  I  stood  listening  to 
the  other's  sending,  there  came  an  interruption 
on  his  side  so  sharp  and  ringing  that  I  involun- 


BIF.  155 

tarily  stepped  back.     The  operator  laughed,  and 
said : 

"  The  old  box  won't  stay  balanced  to-night, 
and  worries  the  old  man.     Did  3*011  get  that?" 

"  I  got  nothing,"  I  replied. 

"  Lay  for  him  next  time.  That  is  bk-bk-bk. 
He  can  say  it  thirty-five  times  in  three  seconds;" 
and  as  he  began  sending  again  the  thing  went  out 
of  adjustment,  and  I  stooped  down  and  listened 
to  a  song  of  bk-bk-bk  so  pert  and  nervous  and 
quick  and  clear  that  I  was  astounded.  Then  fol- 
lowed some  observation  in  an  ordinary  gait,  very 
little  of  which  was  intelligible  to  me.  It  was  a 
story  of  "  cases,"  "  centuries,"  "  savey,"  "  tum- 
ble," "  snide,"  etc.,  with  an  allusion  to  "  'Meli- 
can  man,"  followed  by  the  admonition,  "  don't 
give  it  awee." 

As  all  this  was  jingling  merrily  under  my  nose, 
my  eyes  rested  in  comfort  on  the  face  which  sur- 
mounted that  immaculate  shirt  and  the  tie  like 
the  .Egean  Sea.  While  I  stood  staring,  the 
hand  which  was  making  the  music  stopped,  and, 
looking  me  full  in  the  eye,  Bif  closed  one  beam- 
ing optic  and  accomplished  a  wink  so  familiar, 
so  full  of  comical  suggestiveness  and  a  hundred 


156  BIF. 

other  indefinable  qualities,  that  he  enslaved  me 
then  and  there,  and  made  me  his  friend  forever. 
Who  shall  define  the  subtle  potency  of  a  wink? 
You  may  meet  your  next-door  neighbor  three 
mornings  in  a  week  and  do  the  customary  "  good- 
morning,"  but  you  and  he  are  very  unlikely  to 
build  up  a  friendship.  You  may  be  journeying 
by  train  from  New  YTork  to  San  Francisco,  or  by 
steamer  to  Liverpool,  and  on  your  way  make 
many  charming  acquaintances.  Arriving  at 
your  destination,  addresses  will  be  exchanged, 
and  solemn  promises  made  that  future  meetings 
shall  be  frequent.  But  those  acquaintances  are 
seldom,  if  ever,  renewed.  Let  loose  in  the  busy 
world  again,  you  conclude  that,  after  all,  old 
friends  are  best,  and  your  new  ones  are  gradually 
ignored  and  finally  forgotten.  The  barriers  of 
formality  are  objectionable  qualities  in  social 
ethics,  and  it  is  to  those  with  whom  we  stand  face 
to  face,  shorn  of  all  shams  and  false  joretenses, 
that  our  hearts  cleave  with  growing  faith  and 
fondness.  The  process  of  friend-making  is  a  dull 
one,  and  as  we  grow  older  we  cultivate  new  ac- 
quaintances under  an  increasing  protest.  But  the 
man  who,  under  sympathetic  conditions,  eclipses 


BIF.  157 

his  left  orb  of  sight,  vaults  high  above  all  forms 
and  empty  ceremonies,  and  somehow  takes  a  short 
cut,  as  it  were,  to  the  seat  of  our  affections.  But 
do  not  understand  me  as  being  an  advocate  of 
winking  by  the  indiscriminate  multitude.  Not  at 
all.  Sometimes  I  am  annoyed  -by  hearing  in  con- 
versation, or  meeting  in  print,  the  assertion, 
"The  pen  is  mightier  than  the  sword."  It  is 
not,  and  Bulwer  would  never  have  put  forth  such 
an  assertion  without  the  qualifying  clause,  "  be- 
neath the  rule  of  men  entirely  great. "  So  with 
the  wink,  when  in  the  eye  of  one  entirely  great; 
never  in  the  eye  of  common  folk  like  you  and 
me. 

I  passed  around  the  desk  and  sat  down  in  the 
window-seat  by  Bit"  s  side,  and  we  soon  found  our- 
selves talking  familiarly.  He  did  not  ask  my 
name,  and  manifested  no  curiosity  about  my  his- 
tory or  antecedents.  For  convenience'  sake  he 
called  me  Jim.  He  had  a  fashion  of  calling 
everybody  Jim.  When  I  was  off  duty  that  night 
I  waited  until  he  was  relieved,  and  we  passed  out 
of  the  office,  up  Broadway,  and  took  an  early 
morning  luncheon  together.  Over  a  pan  of 
steaming  oysters  and  a  subsequent  cigar  we  got 


158  BIF. 

on  bravely  until  the  night  had  pretty  effect- 
ually waned.  Bif  had  recently  come  to  New 
York  from  New  Orleans,  and  he  spoke  of 
his  experiences  in  that  city  and  in  Texas.  His 
career  in  the  latter  section  had  been  thrilling, 
and  his  original  and  agreeable  way  of  relating 
his  adventures  delighted  me  beyond  my  power  to 
describe.  The  varying  expressions  of  his  face, 
his  habit  of  enforcing  points  in  the  narrative  by  a 
movement  of  his  eyebrows,  and  his  fluency  of 
speech  and  originality  of  illustration,  afforded  me 
an  entertainment  and  a  study  which  was  new, 
bewitching,  winning.  Before  the  night  was  done 
I  began  to  see  how  he  had  earned  his  reputation 
for  narrative.  He  spoke  of  everything  with  a 
perfection  of  detail,  very  briefly  stated,  which 
made  the  object  of  which  he  spoke  stand  out  as 
defined  and  striking  as  if  chiseled  in  marble. 
From  a  casual  allusion  to  Galveston  I  learned 
that  it  was  the  principal  seaport  town  in  the 
State,  that  it  was  situated  on  Galveston  Island, 
between  Galveston  Bay  and  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
that  it  had  a  population  of  13,818;  and  I  re- 
ceived, in  brief,  a  very  accurate  idea  of  its  rail- 
road and  steamship  facilities,  its  direct  trade  with 


BIF.  150 

Great  Britain,  its  coffee  trade  with  Rio  Janeiro, 
and  its  commercial  relations  with  the  West  Indies 
and  Mexico.  I  also  learned  that  its  export  of 
cotton  for  1872  had  been  333,502  bales,  that  the 
city  had  fifteen  churches,  thirty-one  schools,  a 
Roman  Catholic  university,  a  medical  school,  two 
daily  and  four  weekly  newspapers,  and  a  great 
deal  more  that  I  have  now  forgotten.  Even  in 
referring  to  the  benighted  and  almost  unknown 
town  of  Groesbeck,  where  he  had  witnessed  a 
riot  and  narrowly  escaped  being  shot,  he  oozed 
out  the  information  that  Groesbeck  was  a  post 
town  in  Limestone  County,  on  the  Houston  and 
Texas  Central  Railroad,  and  that  it  published  a 
weekly  paper. 

When  I  had  known  him  about  a  year,  he  said 
to  me  one  day:  "  Jim,  I've  got  the  United  States 
and  England  down  pretty  fine  now.  Can't  you 
scare  me  up  among  your  big  collection  of  novels 
something  in  the  way  of  foreign  travels?  I  want 
to  take  in  some  of  this  way-off  business— Shang- 
hai, Hong  Kong,  Canton,  Singapore,  Penang, 
Calcutta,  Bombay,  Cairo,  Constantinople,  Nine- 
veh, Damascus,  Naples,  and  all  that  business." 
I   served   him  next  day,  when  he  called  at  my 


160  BIF, 

house,  with  a  copy  of  Dr.  Prime's  "  Around  the 
World,"  a  piece  of  descriptive  writing  which  had 
lain  uncut  on  my  book-shelves  for  months,  and 
which  I  would  be  about  as  likely  to  read  as  Bif 
would  have  been  to  read  "  Her  Dearest  Foe/'  or 
any  other  modern  novel.  As  you  have  learned, 
Bif  is  a  man  of  facts  and  figures,  who  recognizes 
the  ideal  and  imaginative  to  a  certain  extent,  but 
who  always  subordinates  them  to  the  actual  and 
realistic.  Dr.  Prime's  book  proved  a  perfect 
mine  to  my  little  friend,  and  its  perusal  was  the 
cause  of  our  forming  a  partnership  and  buying  a 
membership  in  the  Mercantile  Library.  After- 
ward, on  visiting  his  quarters  in  Waverley  Place,  I 
never  found  less  than  two  books  on  India, 
Siberia,  Africa,  Japan,  or  China  lying  about  the 
room.  I  sometimes  dropped  in,  hoping  to  find 
some  readable  story,  but  always  withdrew  un- 
satisfied. "  The  Land  of  the  White  Elephant," 
and  volumes  bearing  kindred  captions,  invariably 
composed  his  stock. 

About  a  year  ago  I  learned  from  a  mutual 
friend  that  Bif  had  exhausted  the  Eastern 
literature  of  the  Mercantile  Library — one  of  the 
largest  in   the   world — and  had    taken    up   the 


BIF.  161 

heavenly  bodies.  And  I  very  shortly  afterward 
found  this  to  be  true.  Walking  up  Broadway 
one  evening,  I  called  his  attention  to  a  shooting 
star.  This  paved  the  way  to  a  very  interesting 
discourse  from  him,  of  which  the  following  is  a 
sample : 

"  Shakespeare  struck  it  very  hard  when  he  put 
it  into  Hamlet's  head  to  tell  Horatio  that  there 
were  more  things  in  heaven  and  earth  than  were 
dreamed  of  in  his  philosophy.  There  are,  Jim, 
you  bet  your  life.  Why,  do  you  know  there  are 
more  than  fifty  million  stars,  scattered  in  irregular 
aggregations,  forming  the  Milky  Way  up  there? 
Our  sun  is  simply  one  of  those  fifty  million  stars, 
without,  so  far  as  astronomers  know,  any  mark 
to  distinguish  him  from  his  fellows.  He  is 
probably  a  snide,  on  the  whole,  and  if  removed 
to  one  million  times  his  present  distance — which 
is  the  probable  distance  of  the  stars  of  the  first 
magnitude — he  would  shine  as  only  a  star  of  the 
third  or  fourth  degree.  According  to  my  read- 
ing, this  system  of  ours  that  folks  blow  about  so 
much  and  talk  about  as  if  the  sun  and  moon  were 
unusual  things,  may  be  one  of  fifty  or  a  hundred 
millions  a  great  deal  like  it." 

6 


162  BIF. 

On  reaching  his  room,  where  I  found  an  agree- 
able company  assembled,  I  discovered  that  his 
recent  examination  into  celestial  affairs  had  not 
weakened  Bif 's  hold  on  his  kuowledge  of  mundane 
things.  He  was  out  of  our  conversation,  and  was 
reading  "Johnson  On  Nebula?,"  when  one  of  us 
rashly  stated  that  England  was  probably  the  most 
thickly  settled  country  in  the  world. 

"  Stop  her,  Jim,"  broke  in  Bif;  "  you  are  way 
oif.  England  only  has  a  population  of  380  to 
the  square  mile.  She's  second  in  the  world,  but 
Belgium  rakes  the  pot.  She  can  whoop  up  451 
to  the  square  mile." 

One  pay-day  night,  when  we  had  all  been  off 
bathing  our  souls  in  lemonade  and  other  liquid 
things,  I  ran  across  Bif  at  the  Jeffersonian  Billiard 
Hall.  He  was  through  playing,  and  was  holding 
forth  on  the  relative  size  of  the  earth,  the  moon, 
Mars,  Jupiter,  Saturn,  Uranus,  and  Neptune,  and 
their  respective  appearances.  His  eyes  indicated 
his  need  of  rest,  but  his  ideas  were  clear  and  his 
talk  entertaining.  It  was  about  2  a.  m.,  and  as  we 
lived  near  each  other,  we  finally  boarded  a  Third 
Avenue  car  for  home.  Before  we  had  gone  many 
blocks  Bif  fell  asleep,  but  as  we  neared  Eighth 


bip.  163 

Street,  I  awoke  him.  He  had  something  rolled  up 
in  his  hand,  which  I  fancied,  was  an  astronomical 
chart,  but  the  sequel  proved  that,  in  the  midst  of 
his  studies  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  his  heart  was 
still  true  to  the  lands  beyond  the  seas. 

"  What  is  that  you've  got  there?"  I  asked. 

"  Jim,"  he  replied,  "  I  wouldn't  take  a  thou- 
sand dollars  for  that.  Fearful  reduction  in 
fares.  Look  here;"  and  deliberately  opening  the 
paper,  he  fixed  his  index  finger  on  a  particular 
line,  and  said:  "Melbourne,  Australia,  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty-six  cases."  It  was  a  time-table 
and  schedule  of  fares  issued  by  the  Pacific  Mail 
Steamship  Company,  and  he  sometimes  spoke  of 
dollars  as  "  cases." 

"It  is  a  great  pity,"  I  said,  "  that  some  of 
those  rich  duffers,  who  don't  care  a  straw  for 
foreign  lands,  don't  let  you  go  abroad  in  their 
place.     How  you  would  enjoy  it!" 

He  was  preparing  to  leave  the  car,  and  in  reply 
stooped  down,  and  taking  my  hand,  with  a  merry 
twinkle  in  his  eye,  said:  "Don't  give  it  away, 
but  I  am  going.  Years  hence,  Jim,  we  will  meet 
again  and  woo  the  Circassian  slave  at  the  junc- 
tion  of  the   Nile   and  Jigwater  rivers."     With 


164  BIF. 

which  observation  he  left  me  to  continue  my 
journey  a  few  blocks  further  on,  and  made  his 
cheerful  way  across  town  to  Broadway. 

***** 

"  Good-bye,  Jim,"  cried  a  well-known  voice; 
"  I  am  off  for  Omaha."  I  shouted  back  "  Good- 
bye," little  dreaming  that  the  speaker  was  in 
earnest.  But  I  see  by  the  personal  column  in  the 
telegraphic  papers  that  my  old-time  friend  has 
really  deserted  the  scenes  which  have  known  him 
these  many  moons,  and  has  cast  his  lines  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Missouri.  God  bless  his  genial 
face  and  gentle  heart,  and  may  the  maximum  of 
warmth  and  gladness  cheer  and  make  bright  his 
future  life.  For  whatever  of  flaw  or  frailty 
mars  his  sunny  nature,  yet  has  he  in  him  some- 
thing beautiful  which  puts  men's  hearts  in  tune. 


THE  END. 


FROM  FRANKLIN  TO  EDISON. 


Written    for    delivery   before   the    Ohio    Associated 
Dailies,  at  Columbus,  Wednesday, 
January  24,    1894. 


FROM 

FRANKLIN  TO  EDISON. 

BY 

WALTER   P.   PHILLIPS. 

I  have  not  come  here  to-day,  ladies  and  gentlemen, 
to  tell  you  anything  about  the  journalistic,  literary  or 
political  history  of  Ohio.  You  are  natives  here  and  to  the 
manner  born,  while  I  am  perhaps  the  worst-equipped 
person  in  this  room  to  speak  of  the  essential  essence  of 
things  as  they  exist  in  this  State.  To  be  sure,  I  am  not 
so  benighted  as  not  to  have  heard  of  "  the  Ohio  idea," 
but  really  I  have  never  examined  it  closely,  and  to  me  it 
is  an  unknown  quantity,  something  to  be  respected,  and  I 
respect  it  in  the  same  way  I  do  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  the 
Monroe  doctrine  and  other  factors  affecting  the  progress 
and  development  of  the  world,  and  concerning  which  my 
knowledge  is  hazy  and  nebulous.     I   may  say,  however, 

1G7 


that  I  appreciate  the  rarity  and  value  of  an  idea  to  a 
degree  that  brings  me  to  regard  it  as  a  God-given  thing, 
and  it  is  of  much  more  than  ordinary  consequence  when  it 
is  coupled  with  the  name  of  a  State,  the  bare  mention  of 
which  invokes  a  picture  of  fertile  fields,  of  sun  flushed 
hills,  and  of  streams,  which,  flowing  through  the  wood- 
lands, bring  to  mind  that  precious  thought  of  Long- 
fellow's, that  such  streams  resemble  good  men  in  that, 
though  darkened  by  shadows  of  earth,  they  reflect  an 
image  of  Heaven — when  that  idea  is  placed  in  combina- 
tion, let  me  add,  with  a  name  so  certain  to  suggest  to  even 
the  most  ordinary  intellect  the  dwelling-place  of  a  people 
at  once  proud,  progressive,  philanthropical,  potential. 
Therefore,  while,  as  I  have  said,  I  have  never  quite  com- 
prehended the  exact  significance,  never  been  able  to 
analyze  it,  and  to  classify  the  atomic  constituents  of  this 
much-mentioned  thing,  yet  1  am  prepared  to  accept  it  as 
a  whole  and  to  subscribe  to  it  as  one  of  those  important 
elements  which  exist  in  the  realm  of  causation,  and  to 
express  my  firm  faith  in  its  importance  among  the  influ- 
ences which  promote,  elevate  and  conserve  the  political 
welfare  of  mankind. 

When  it  comes  to  speaking  of  the  making  of  news- 
papers, I  feel  that  I  am  in  the  presence  of  those  who  are 
past  masters  in  that  art,  and  I  am  warned  by  an  inward 
monitor  that  any  fresh  field  or  pasture  new  which  lies  out- 
side the  domain  of  active  journalism  is  a  much  safer  place 
for  me  to  wander,  than  in  those  paths  which  have  been 
trodden  with  such  sturdiness  and  with  so  much  honor  by 
the  editors  of   Ohio.     Indeed,    I   have  been   out  of  the 

168 


harness  as  a  legitimate  newspaper  man  for  nearly  twenty 
years,  and  while  I  am  intimately  connected  with  those 
who  are  making  our  daily  journals,  and  supply  them  with 
one  of  the  commodities  entering  into  the  manufacture  of 
their  wares,  I  represent  the  telegraph  rather  than  the 
newspaper,  and  it  is  of  the  former,  and  of  some  of  the 
people  who  have  been  connected  with  it,  together  with  a 
passing  reference  to  the  matter  of  composition,  and  of  the 
men  who  have  started  from  the  printer's  case  and  become 
famous,  that  I  shall  speak. 

Circumstances  prevented  me  from  being  a  farmer. 
The  pauic  of  1857  was  keenly  felt  in  Worcester  County, 
Massachusetts,  where  my  father  was  following  in  the  foot- 
steps of  his  sire,  and  the  time  came  when  we  gave  up  the 
old  farm  and  went  cityward.  As  a  boy,  I  learned  to  tele- 
graph, and  as  a  young  man,  a  few  years  later,  when  I  had 
deserted  telegraphy  for  country  journalism,  I  learned  with 
aching  back  and  weary  eyes  the  difficult  art  of  typesetting, 
and  gave  to  the  community  of  Attleboro'  certain  articles 
composed  at  the  case,  and  which,  at  that  time,  I  regarded 
as  editorials.  They  had  chiefly  to  do  with  the  course  of 
an  unsuspecting  gentleman  named  Horace  Greeley,  who 
had  offended  me  by  accepting  the  endorsement  of  a  Demo- 
cratic Convention  when  we  Liberal  Republicans  in  Massa- 
chusetts supposed  we  had  him  to  ourselves.  But,  alas! 
however  liberal  our  jorinciplcs  may  have  been,  we  were  not 
generous  with  our  votes.  I  remember  viewing  all  that 
was  mortal  of  Mr.  Greeley  as  his  body  lay  in  state  in  the 
City  Hall  in  New  York,  and  when  I  thought  of  this  won- 
derful  man — not   only  a  journalist,  but   a  statesman,  a 

L69 


philosopher,  and  perhaps  a  genius;  when  it  flashed  upon 
me  that  this  was  the  end  of  a  man  whose  vigor  and  virility 
impelled  him,  once,  to  write  from  Washington,  telling  a 
subordinate  that  if  he  couldn't  stop  all  that  twaddle  in  the 
"  Tribune  "  about  music  and  get  a  little  of  his  own — Mr. 
Greeley's  own — stuff  into  the  paper,  to  go  and  burn  down 
the  Academy  of  Music  and  thus  end  all  foolishness  of  that 
kind  by  applyiug  a  torch  to  the  citadel — when  I  thought 
of  this  and  of  his  courage  in  braving  public  opinion  by 
going  upon  the  bail  bond  of  Jefferson  Davis,  and  then 
beheld  the  shrunken  form  of  this  victim  of  disappointed 
political  hopes,  now  cold  in  death,  the  tears  sprung  to  my 
eyes,  and  the  thought  was  lodged  in  my  mind,  for  a  mo- 
ment, at  least,  that  perhaps  Wolsey  was  right  when  he 
said:  "I  charge  thee,  Cromwell,  fling  away  ambition;  by 
that  sin  fell  the  angels." 

But  without  ambition  there  wrould  be  no  progress.  Am- 
bition is  the  mainspring  of  action,  and  next  to  courage 
there  is  a  no  more  noble  human  attribute.  It  is  ambition, 
when  accompanied  by  ability,  that  raises  men  from  the 
common  avocations  of  life  to  higher  planes:  and  so  it 
seems  to  me  that  the  thought  which  came  momentarily 
to  my  mind,  as  I  stood  by  Mr.  Greeley's  coffin,  that  am- 
bition was  a  thing  to  throw  away  at  the  illogical  bidding  of 
a  cardinal  dethroned,  was  an  unworthy  one. 

There  is  a  belief  prevalent  that  great  men  can  be  made 
in  colleges,  but  nothing  could  be  more  absurd.  No  one 
has  a  greater  respect  for  a  college  education  than  I  have, 
for  it  was  denied  to  me,  and  we  are  apt  to  think  the 
thing  we  missed  is  the  best  thing  going.     I  have  shown  my 

170 


faith  in  the  worth  of  college  training  by  putting  my  only 
surviving  son  in  Columbia  College,  and  I  think,  if  he  lives 
and  has  his  health,  he  will  be  heard  from,  for  he  has  a 
well-balanced  mind,  a  good  heart,  and  he  has  formed  com- 
mendable habits  of  industry.  These  are  three  great  points 
in  his  favor.  I  must  confess  that  some  of  my  precon- 
ceived notions  as  to  the  relative  consequence  of  certain 
Greek  generals,  the  precise  time  of  their  campaigns,  the 
results  thereof,  and  especially  my  favorite  manner  of 
pronouncing  the  few  Latin  words  and  proper  names  with 
which  I  had  familiarized  myself  from  time  to  time,  were 
rather  ruthlessly  set  aside  during  our  companionship  cov- 
ering my  son's  Freshman  year.  During  the  Sophomore 
period  I  was  set  right  on  many  points  in  reference  to 
what  I  conceived  to  be  the  advantages  of  a  protective 
tariff,  and  heard  of  Adam  Smith,  anew,  for  the  first  time 
m  a  quarter  of  a  century.  Then  came  the  Junior  year 
and  the  utter  destruction  of  certain  convictions  of  mine 
affecting  the  geological  condition  on  this  mysterious 
sphere,  and  the  chemical  constituents  of  the  sun  and  moon 
and  stars.  Fortunately,  I  long  since  divested  myself  of  an 
opinion  shared  with  me  and  still  firmly  entertained  by  as 
important  a  personage  as  the  King  of  Siam,  that  the 
world  is  flat;  and  it  having  finally  dawned  on  me  that 
Caesar  was  not  a  Patagonian,  I  am  looking  forward  to  this 
coming  Senior  year  with  a  hopeful  heart,  for  I  feel 
moderately  certain  that  I  shall  not  disgrace  myself  further 
in  the  eyes  of  this  coming  statesman,  orator,  journalist, 
author,  inventor,  or  what  not.  Such  of  the  graduates 
from  Columbia,  Harvard,  Yale  and   the  numerous  other 

i;i 


colleges  as  have  ability  are  needed  in  journalism,  and 
their  presence  there  is  most  beneficial.  Some  of  these 
men  have,  of  course,  proved  failures,  but  that  was  because 
they  had  not  in  them  the  restless  germ  of  success,  or  they 
perchance  were  incompetent  when  they  entered  college, 
and  the  scholastic  varnish  which  adhered  to  them  was  so 
thin  that  it  soon  vanished.  There  are  men,  sa}7s  Charles 
Dudley  Warner,  who  think  they  can  sing  high  C,  but 
most  of  them  soon  find  that  they  can  not  do  it,  and  they 
go  down  and  sing  in  the  chorus  for  the  remainder  of  their 
lives.  Others,  he  adds,  go  on  striving  for  high  C  as  long 
as  they  live.  That  is  very  true,  and  it  is  truer  still  that 
many  of  them  reach  high  C  who  were  never  expected  to. 
Among  these,  the  most  notable  are  those  who  are  gradu- 
ated from  the  printer's  case  and  the  telegraph  operator's 
table.  Next  to  colleges,  no  two  professions — and  I  may 
say  they  are  twin  professions,  their  natural  alliance  having 
been  suggested  long  years  ago  when  a  printer  wooed  the 
electric  spark  from  hurrying  somber  clouds  and  made  it 
captive  in  a  Leyden  jar — there  are  no  two  professions 
which  furnish  the  world  with  as  large  a  number  of  useful 
citizens,  capable  of  grasping  and  dealing  with  intricate, 
important  and  far-reaching  enterprises,  as  those  represented 
by  the  art  of  setting  type  and  the  knack  of  working  wires. 
When  I  read  the  well-rounded  periods  of  William  Dean 
Howells  and  observe  the  nicety  with  which  he  analyzes  the 
female  character,  or  peruse  his  descriptions  of  Italian  life 
and  landscapes — true  poetry  every  word  of  it — I  feel  proud 
of  the  fact  that  he  has  covered  in  a  few  years  the  great  dis- 
tance lying  between  the  position  of  one  of  America's  most 

172 


famous  living  authors  and  that  of  a  compositor  in  his  fa- 
ther's newspaper  office  at  Ashtabula.  When  I  read  the 
dramatic  and  delicious  stories  of  that  American  author  who 
can  tell  the  story  he  has  to  tell  better  than  any  man  living, 
outside  of  France — I  refer  to  Francis  Bret  Harte — I  picture 
him  at  his  case  in  a  California  newspaper  office,  mechanical- 
ly placing  the  type  in  his  stick,  and  like  the  girl  with  her 
pitcher  at  the  well,  who  heard  and  not  heard  and  let  it 
overflow,  I  fancy  his  wandering  thoughts  are  flying  far 
away,  "sailing  the  Vesuvian  Bay."  And  then  I  think  of 
the  sturdy  application  and  industry  that  is  implied  by  such 
a  development  as  his,  and  I  honor  him  with  renewed 
fervency.  When  I  saw,  in  Washington,  under  President 
Garfield,  the  reeking  corruption  of  the  postal  service 
probed  to  the  bottom  and  a  reform  begun  by  General 
Thomas  L.  James,  which  has  been  bearing  fruit  ever 
since,  under  the  supervision  of  his  successors,  I  found 
great  pleasure  in  knowing  that  the  man  who  had  accom- 
plished this  could  do  something  that  I  had  once  been 
doing — that  he  was  a  printer  by  trade.  One  of  the  most 
successful,  the  most  deserving,  and  most  manly  of  men — 
General  Charles  H.  Taylor,  of  the  Boston  "  Globe  " — adds 
to  his  other  attributes  the  gift  of  most  entertaining  speak- 
ing. His  conversation  is  a  perpetual  treat,  but  out  of  all 
he  ever  said  to  me,  his  assertion,  one  day  when  we  were 
comparing  notes,  that  when  I  was  a  boy  reading  the 
"  Weekly  Traveller,'"  of  Boston,  upon  our  ancestral  acres, 
he  was  another  boy,  of  my  own  age,  who  was  then  learning 
his  trade  as  a  printer  on  that  same  Boston  "  Weekly 
Traveller."'    was   the   most   gratifying.      I    might   go   on 

173 


indefinitely  and  mention  others  than  Amos  Cummings  who 
are  now,  or  have  been,  members  of  Congress,  but  I  need 
not.  The  old-time  printers  are  to  be  found  everywhere. 
You  will  discover  them  in  high  positions  in  the  depart- 
ments at  Washington  as  well  as  in  Congress;  they  are  in 
control  of  great  newspapers;  they  are  practicing  medi- 
cine, dispensing  legal  advice,  writing  poetry,  preaching 
sermons — in  short,  if  I  were  asked  in  what  place  these 
progressive  graduates  from  the  case  can  not  be  found,  my 
reply  would  be:  'Nowhere  excepting  in  those  paths 
where  it  is  dishonorable  or  undignified  to  be,  for  your  true 
printer  is  a  man  of  character,  of  decision,  and  rich  in  those 
moral  attributes  which  serve  to  constantly  renew  our  faith 
in  the  ultimate  destiny  of  our  race." 

A  few  years  ago,  many  of  us  were  reading  a  series  of 
graphic  and  heart-rending  articles  appearing  in  the 
"Century  Magazine."  They  referred  to  the  outrages 
perpetrated  upon  Eussian  subjects  by  what  is  called  an 
administrative  process  of  banishment,  through  the  opera- 
tion of  which  men  and  women  of  education  and  refine- 
ment, when  under  suspicion  of  a  lack  of  fealty  to  the 
Czar,  are  eliminated  from  the  body  politic.  We  were  told 
that  these  unfortunates  were  sent  without  trial  to  Siberia, 
forced  to  walk  thousands  of  miles  through  deep  drifted 
snow,  with  their  legs  in  chains,  compelled  to  sleep  in  mis- 
erable etapes  en  route,  of  their  dying  of  exposure  and 
from  disease  in  its  most  loathsome  forms,  and,  finally,  of 
the  hopeless  lives  of  the  survivors  in  the  convict  colonies  of 
Siberia,  perishing  at  last,  perhaps,  in  the  revolting  mines 
of  Kara.     These  revelations,  written   in  a  clear,  concise 

174 


and  dispassionate  manner  by  an  eye-witness  of  what  he 
was  describing,  and  carrying  conviction  at  every  step  by 
the  corroborative  evidence  contained  in  citations  from 
official  documents,  which  more  than  sustained  the  writer's 
charges — these  revelations  shocked  the  whole  civilized 
world.  The  man  who  obtained  this  mass  of  astounding 
information  did  so  at  the  constant  peril  of  his  life;  the 
journey  itself  was  enough  to  kill  men  of  ordinary  fiber; 
but  he  was  also  stricken  with  typhus  fever,  his  solitary 
English-speaking  companion  was  made  insane  by  the  hor- 
rors they  beheld,  while  the  travelers  themselves  underwent 
hardships  rivaling  those  of  the  Tartar  tribe  whose  flight 
is  so  grandly  described  by  De  Quincy.  Finally  these  men 
came  back,  and  one  of  them  has  been  lecturing  ever  since 
upon  the  subjects  treated  iu  the  "  Century "  articles. 
When  I  had  listened,  with  deep  emotion,  to  the  first 
lecture  he  delivered  in  New  York,  and,  at  its  close,  joined 
the  throng  that  surged  toward  the  platform  to  grasp  the 
hand  of  this  brave,  splendid  man,  I  did  not  think  of  him 
in  the  convict  dress  he  had  donned  in  just  the  same  way 
that  others  did.  To  me,  he  was  only  the  George  Kennan, 
who  was  a  telegraph  operator  at  Cincinnati  in  the  early 
sixties,  a  mere  lad  then,  who,  having  begun  the  practice  of 
telegraphy  at  the  early  age  of  six  years,  under  his  father's 
tuition  at  Xorwalk,  in  this  State,  had  gone  out  into  a 
larger  world  to  seek  his  fortune.  I  remembered  him  as 
the  daring  youth  who,  hearing  that,  as  a  result  of  the 
failure  of  the  first  Atlantic  Cable,  the  Western  Union 
Telegraph  Company  contemplated  building  an  overland 
line    connecting    British  Columbia  with  St.  Petersburg — 

175 


who,  hearing  this,  wrote  to  the  late  General  Anson  Stager, 
and  asked  for  permission  to  join  the  party  that  was  to 
operate  on  the  Russian  terminus  of  the  undertaking.  To 
General  Stager's  somewhat  tardy  answer  by  wire,  coupled 
with  the  question,  "  Can  you  be  ready  in  a  week?"  Ken- 
nan  sent  back  the  characteristic  answer,  "Yes,  sir;  I  can 
be  ready  in  an  hour. " 

I  thought,  as  I  stood  there,  of  this  early  index  of  his 
quality,  of  the  time  when  he  made  the  longest  journey 
with  dogs  and  reindeer  that  any  one  had  ever  made;  of  his 
getting  so  deeply  buried  in  Siberia  that  it  was  months  after 
the  overland  expedition  had  been  abandoned  before  the 
fact  came  to  his  knowledge.  I  saw  him  gathering  in- 
formation and  putting  his  experiences  into  a  book  of  the 
most  charming  description,  before  he  was  hardly  out  of  his 
teens.  In  "  Tent  Life  in  Siberia,"  humor  abounds  on 
almost  every  page;  the  entire  work  is  redolent  of  health 
and  hope  and  buoyancy,  and  there  are  passages  in  it 
such,  for  instance,  as  Kennan's  well-known  description 
of  an  Arctic  aurora,  than  which  nothing  in  the  English 
language  is  more  rhythmical,  graphic,  elevated  and 
stirring.  This  book  was  not  much  bought  when  the 
Putnams  brought  it  out  in  the  long  ago,  but  it  has  been 
thoroughly  circulated  and  digested  during  the  past  ftw 
years. 

I  gazed  lovingly  upon  the  grave,  strong  face  of  this  man 
of  fire  and  dew  as  he  received  the  homage  of  the  great 
people  of  New  York,  and  I  was  thinking  all  the  while 
what  an  honor  it  conferred  upon  me  to  have  been  one  of 
his   earlier  friends,   to  have   been  bound   to   him  in    the 

176 


almost  masonic  bonds  of  union  which   telegraphic  associa- 
tion implies. 

When  I  hear  of  the  achievement  of  the  great  railroad 
president  who  built  a  new  northern  route  to  the  Pacific 
Coast,  and  created  a  city  in  a  wilderness  of  such  im- 
penetrable wildness  as  few  who  have  not  penetrated  the 
woods  about  Vancouver  and  along  the  coast  from  there 
down  to  Seattle  can  fairly  comprehend,  I  think  of  William 
C.  Van  Home  as  the  boy  telegraph  operator  going  out 
from  Joliet  to  find  the  field  for  the  display  of  his  energies 
that  his  soul  craved,  even  in  boyhood.  I  think  of  him 
when  he  was  dismissed  from  service  for  a  trivial  fault, 
making  his  way  to  Ottawa  to  lay  his  grievances  before 
Judge  Caton,  who,  perhaps,  regarded  the  fifteen-year-old 
visitor  with  curiosity,  and  wondered  where  he  would  arrive 
at  last.  I  am  glad  Judge  Caton  still  lives  and  knows 
how  much  this  youngster  to  whom  he  was  more  than  kind 
has  finally  accomplished. 

Then  there  are  L.  C.  Weir,  Marvin  Hughitt,  Judge 
Lambert  Tree,  the  latter  one  of  the  first  operators  at 
Washington,  on  the  line  constructed  by  Morse  between 
that  city  and  Baltimore;  General  Thomas  T.  Eckert, 
president  of  the  most  wonderful  corporation  in  all  the 
world,  and  Andrew  Carnegie,  now  come  to  be  the  possessor 
of  uncounted  millions.  They  were  all  telegraph  operators, 
within  my  recollection;  and  there  are  hundreds  more 
whose  careers  are  of  exceeding  interest.  I  shall  confine 
myself  to  speaking  of  only  one  of  them,  but  I  hope  to  be 
pardoned  for  discussing  him  quite  at  length.  He  deserves 
much  more  than   I   can  say  of  him,  not  only  because  of 

177 


what  he  has  accomplished,  but  for  the  sentimental  reason 
that  he  was  born  at  Milan,  in  this  State,  and  for  the  con- 
sistent reason,  as  far  as  the  purposes  of  this  address  go, 
that  he  was  not  only  a  telegrapher,  but  a  printer,  too,  like 
his  great  predecessor,  Franklin. 

It  was  nearly  twenty-five  years  ago  when  I  first  met 
Edison.  He  came  to  Boston  and  was  employed  for  a  short 
time  as  an  operator.  He  was  regarded  as  a  good-natured, 
but  hair-brained  chap,  and  my  impression  is  that  he  was 
finally  discharged  from  the  service  for  inattention  to  busi- 
ness. He  was  fairly  punctual  at  all  times,  excepting  on 
pay  days,  when  he  would  come  straying  in  an  hour  late 
and  blandly  ask  some  of  us  to  lend  him  half  a  dollar  with 
which  to  get  his  supper.  When  reminded  that  he  had 
received  half  a  month's  salary  that  day,  he  would  smile, 
and  taking  a  brown- paper-covered  parcel  from  under  his 
arm,  he  would  display  a  Ruhmkorff  coil,  an  expensive  set 
of  helices,  or  something  equally  useless  in  the  eyes  of  his 
comrades  in  the  office;  from  which  we  were  led  to  infer 
that  the  salary  for  the  preceding  half  month  had  been 
exchanged  for  these  apparently  useless  instruments.  He 
spent  a  great  deal  of  his  time  when  on  duty  in  making 
diagrams  to  show  how  wires  could  be  operated  in  a  multi- 
plex way,  and  he  held  forth  with  undeniable  eloquence  on 
every  conceivable  subject  excepting  that  relating  to  the 
prompt  dispatch  of  such  messages  as  the  company  then 
had  on  file  for  transmission.  The  office-boys  came  and 
hung  message  af.er  message  on  the  little  row  of  hooks  in 
front  of  him,  but  Edison's  interest  in  them  generally  car- 
ried him  no  further  than  up  against  the  proposition  that  if 

178 


by  a  system  of  rheostats,  polarized  magnets  and  batteries 
of  different  potentiality  he  could  enable  one  wire  to  carry 
four  sets  of  signals,  two  each  in  different  ways,  those 
troublesome  messages,  when  intrusted  to  otber  hands  than 
his,  could  be  disposed  of  with  increased  rapidity.  And  so 
he  used  to  sit  and  draw  and  dream,  and  let  the  business 
hang,  until  reminded  by  the  chief  operator  that  he  must 
attend  to  his  work.  I  did  not  even  know  bis  name  at 
first,  for  some  one  had  referred  to  him  as  Victor  Hugo 
when  he  made  his  appearance,  and  it  was  by  that  name 
that  we  generally  spoke  of  him.  Every  device  was  em- 
ployed to  thwart  his  soarings  after  the  infinite,  and  his 
divings  for  the  unfathomable,  as  we  regarded  them,  and 
to  get  an  amount  of  work  out  of  him  that  was  equivalent 
to  the  sum  paid  per  diem  for  his  services,  and  among  them 
was  that  of  having  him  receive  the  press  report  from  New 
York.  He  did  not  like  this,  the  work  continuing  steadily 
from  6.30  p.  m.  until  2  a.  m.,  and  leaving  him  no  time  in 
which  to  pursue  his  studies.  One  night  about  8  p.  m. 
there  came  down  au  inquiry  as  to  where  the  press  report 
was,  and  on  going  to  the  desk  where  Edison  was  at  work, 
night  manager  Leighton  was  horrified  to  find  that  there 
was  nothing  ready  to  go  upstairs,  for  the  reason  thai 
Edison  had  copied  between  fifteen  hundred  and  two  thou- 
sand words  of  stock  and  other  market  reports  in  a  hand  so 
email  that  he  had  only  filled  a  third  of  a  page.  Leighton 
laughed  in  spite  of  himself,  and  saying:  "  Heavens,  Tom; 
don't  do  that  again!"  hastened  to  cut  the  copy  up  into 
minute  fragments  and  have  it  prepared  in  a  more  accept- 
able manner.     While  this  was  occurring,  Edison  went  on 

179 


receiving,  and  the  frequent  trips  of  the  noisy  dummy-box 
which  communicated  with  the  press-rooms  on  the  next 
floor  gave  evidence  that  he  was  no  longer  gauging  his 
handwriting  with  an  ultimate  view  to  putting  the  Lord's 
prayer  on  a  three-cent  piece.  But  all  at  once  there  was  a 
great  noise,  and  it  was  evident  that  press  agent  Wallace,  a 
most  profane  man,  was  coming  down  the  stairs,  sweating 
and  shouting  as  he  came.  Everybody  grew  excited  except 
Edison,  who  was  perhaps  dreaming  of  the  possibilities  in 
some  of  the  realms  of  electrical  endeavor  in  which  he  has 
since  won  renown.  But  we  did  not  have  long  to  wait  to 
know  the  cause  of  Wallace's  'visit.  Kicking  open  the 
door,  he  appeared  to  us,  but  lie  was  speechless.  The  last 
note  of  his  voice  and  the  last  remnant  of  a  vocabulary  of 
blasphemy  which  was  famous  throughout  the  city  was 
gone.  Standing  there  with  both  hands  full  of  small,  white 
pages  of  paper,  he  could  only  beckon.  Leighton  ap- 
proached him,  and  tenderly  took  the  sheets  of  paper  from 
him,  to  find  that  Edison  had  made  the  radical  change 
from  his  first  style  of  copy  to  simply  putting  one  word  on 
each  sheet,  directly  in  the  center.  He  had  furnished  in 
this  way  several  hundred  pages  in  a  very  few  minutes. 
He  was  relieved  from  duty  on  the  press  wire,  and  put  on 
another  circuit,  while  the  much-tried  Leighton  devoted 
himself  to  bringing  Wallace  back  to  a  normal  condition, 
admitting  of  the  use  of  his  voice  and  the  flow  of  his  usual 
output  of  profanity. 

I  insert  a  specimen  of  Edison's  wonderful  handwriting. 
Ever  since  he  became  an  operator  it  has  been,  and  still 
continues  to  be,  the  same  unique  style  of  penmanship  as 

180 


<0 

v_/himd  LotuT 


C&arfcfc  /Y.C  £Uh|  Jta   *fO 


«^    nofjf  J  -Motoent"CMcinoecl  <*  »cvvhcre# 


c)  <*-  Tcc/he*.  fiave  j£e  <?m«ft^-poy    K^ 


<vw  ct. 


^c^cffeoi    fteojot.       J^Jjcf* -yvie.  o(  oia>t\  ^6'«r 


^iuoC-rTui     4iue., 


when,  in  response  to  Mr.  Catlin's  inquiry  if  he  was  still 
interested  in  such  modest  affairs  as  fast-sending  tourna- 
ments, Edison  sent  his  characteristic  reply  from  North 
Carolina,  where  he  was  conducting  some  experiments  in 
1890,  when  the  correspondence  between  him  and  Catlin 
took  place. 

In  the  winter  of  1872-73,  I  was  employed  in  the  New 
York  office  of  the  Western  Union  Telegraph  Company, 
and  my  desk  being  near  the  switch-board,  my  attention 
was  attracted  one  evening  to  a  queer  collection  of  instru- 
ments, now  grown  familiar  enough,  but  quite  puzzling  to 
ordinary  telegraphers  at  the  time.  This  group  of  things 
which  was  reposing  on  the  floor  somehow  suggested  Boston 
and  diagrams.  It  was  in  everybody's  way,  but  along 
about  midnight  Edison  came  in,  and,  gathering  up  his 
paraphernalia,  began  to  arrange  it  by  connecting  the 
various  parts  with  a  fine  copper  wire  which  he  unwound 
from  a  small  spool  that  he  produced  from  his  pocket.  He 
was  our  companion,  by  day  and  by  night,  for  nearly  a 
week,  during  which  time  he  never  went  to  bed  or  had  any 
regular  hours  for  meals.  When  he  was  hungry,  he  visited 
a  coffee  and  cake  establishment  in  the  neighborhood,  and 
absorbed  what  he  was  pleased  to  call  the  Bohemian  Diet, 
and,  returning  with  an  unlighted  cigar  between  his  lips, 
he  would  begin  his  experiments  anew.  After  awhile,  he 
would  throw  himself  into  a  chair  and  doze,  sometimes  for 
an  hour,  and  again  for  shorter  or  longer  periods.  He 
used  to  say  that  when  he  was  thus  napping,  he  dreamed 
out  many  things  that  had  puzzled  him  while  awake.  He 
was  found  late  at  night  once,  in  his  Newark   laboratory, 

is:; 


in  this  condition  by  a  passing  friend,  who,  noticing  that 
the  place  was  lighted,  made  Edison  a  nocturnal  call. 

"  Aren't  you  going  home,  Tom?  It  is  late,'*  remarked 
the  visitor. 

"  How  late?"  inquired  Edison,  yawning  and  stretching 
himself. 

"  About  one  o'clock/'  returned  his  friend. 

"  Is  that  so?"  exclaimed  Edison.  "  By  George!  I  must 
go  home.     I  was  married  to-day." 

None  of  his  friends  had  heard  of  the  marriage,  but  it 
was  true  that  he  had  become  a  Benedict  that  very  morning 
after  a  courtship  rapidly  conducted  to  a  successful  issue. 
During  her  short,  sweet  companionship  with  this  curious 
dreamer  of  most  substantial  visions,  the  first  Mrs.  Edison 
was  a  helpful  spouse,  and  she  revered  her  husband  and 
thought  him  almost  a  god. 

One  day  I  was  asked  if  I  were  willing  to  come  around  in 
the  day-time  and  work  extra  at  the  usual  rate  of  compen- 
sation, and,  replying  in  the  affirmative,  I  was  told  to 
report  in  the  electrician's  room  at  noon  until  further 
notice.  Seven  other  operators  were  selected,  and  together 
we  experimented  with  Edison's  instrument,  which  we  were 
told  was  "  the  quadruplex."  It  was  then  in  a  very  crude 
state,  and  the  signals  came  over  it  in  a  way  to  suggest  to 
an  imaginative  person  the  famous  rocky  road  to  Dublin. 
Edison  was  always  present,  changing  something  here  or 
there,  and  gradually  a  result,  somewhat  imperfect  but 
constantly  improving,  rewarded  his  efforts.  Finalty,  he 
made  us  a  little  speech,  saying:  "  Boys,  she  is  a  go.  The 
principle  is  all  right,  and   the  sharps  upstairs  can  get  the 

184 


bugs  out  of  it.  We  can  not  do  it  down  here,  for  the 
troubles  with  telegraphic  appliances  can  only  be  gotten 
out  in  the  same  way  the  Irish  pilot  found  the  rocks  in  the 
harbor — with  the  bottom  of  his  ship.  There  is  nothing  so 
baffling  as  the  perversity  of  a  new  thing;  it  must  be  used 
in  order  to  find  out  where  the  bugs  are,  and  when  they  are 
located  anybody  can  get  them  out/'  A  "  bug  "  is  simply 
the  elusive  trouble  that  appears  on  wires  and  instruments, 
and  which  has  to  be  found  and  eliminated  before  perfect 
results  can  be  obtained. 

When  Edison  stopped  speaking,  no  one  replied.  We 
enjoyed  hearing  him  talk,  and  were  anxious  to  have  him 
go  on;  but  he  only  smiled,  and  then  said  abruptly:  "  You 
don't  seem  to  tumble.  Every  man  Jack  of  you  is  fired 
after  to-day." 

And  thus  the  quadruplex,  long  since  perfected,  not 
wholly  by  Edison,  but  worked  out  on  his  lines  by  others, 
came  into  being;  and,  as  many  of  you  know,  it  is  as  much 
a  part  of  the  vast  telegraphic  machinery  in  use  to-day  as 
are  the  more  simple  and  ordinary  instruments. 

Mr.  Orton,  who  was  then  the  President  of  the  Western 
Union,  was  very  slow  in  reaching  a  decision  about  pur- 
chasing the  patent,  and  a  little  further  down  the  street 
there  was  an  unobtrusive-looking  person  who  in  his  life- 
time used  to  stray  up  and  down  Broadway  without  one  in 
a  thousand  recognizing  him  or  dreaming  who  he  was. 
He  was  largely  interested  in  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  Tele- 
graph Company.  This  quiet  person,  however,  had  not 
only  heard  considerable  about  the  practical  value  of 
Edison's    invention    from    his     managers,     but    on    his 

185 


own  account  he  possessed  a  somewhat  keen  eye,  an 
intellect  on  the  whole  quite  up  to  ordinary  standards,  and 
he  had  more  decision  of  character  and  more  courage  than 
all  the  people  then  in  the  ownership  of  the  Western  Union 
Company.  This  man  is  dead  now,  but  it  was  my  good 
fortune  to  know  him  quite  well,  and  it  is  due  to  his  mem- 
ory to  say  that  a  more  modest,  self-effacing,  low-voiced 
and  charming  man  could  scarcely  be  imagined.  His 
name  is  as  familiar  in  this  ►State  as  in  my  own.  I  am 
speaking  of  the  late  Jay  Gould. 

One  day  when  Edison  had  received  several  small  pay- 
ments on  account  of  his  invention,  and  when  he  needed 
money  and  was  urging  a  final  settlement  with  the  Western 
Union  Company  without  making  any  progress,  he  met  Mr. 
Gould  on  the  street,  and  the  latter  said: 

"  Tom,  those  fellows  will  never  do  any  business  with 
you.  Why  not  sell  the  quadruplex  to  me?  I'll  buy  it, 
subject  to  all  litigation." 

"  What  will  you  pay  for  it?"  asked  Edison. 

"  Well."  said  Mr.  Gould,  fumbling  in  his  vest-pocket, 
(t  I  have  here  a  check  that  was  given  to  me  an  hour  ago 
by  Jarrett  &  Palmer,  to  whom  I  have  sold  the  steamer 
'Plymouth  Rock.'  It  is  for  thirty  thousand  dollars. 
I'll  give  you  that." 

The  offer  was  promptly  accepted,  and  Mr.  Gould 
dropped  in  at  the  nearest  place  where  pen  and  ink  were 
available,  and  endorsed  the  check  over  to  Edison.  Then 
the  litigation  began,  and  lawyers  and  experts  had  most 
interesting  sessions  for  a  long  time.  Edison  testified,  and 
he   told   the   court  so  many  things   that   were   new   and 

186 


strange,  that  gray-haired  judges  and  technical  lawyers 
listened  with  one  accord,  and  the  question  at  issue  was  lost 
sight  of  in  the  entertainment  his  listeners  found  in  having 
the  coming  wizard  talk  about  abstruse  subjects  concerning 
which  he  knew  so  much  that  a  mere  knowledge  of  a  com- 
mon thing  like  the  law  made  counsel  and  judges  seem 
sadly  ignorant  in  his  presence. 

While  this  was  going  on,  Mr.  Gould  quietly  disappeared 
from  the  control  of  Atlantic  and  Pacific  affairs.     General 
Eokert,   who  in   the   meantime    had    come  over  to  the 
Atlantic    and    Pacific,   suddenly  withdrew,    and   early   in 
1880,  the  American  Union  Telegraph  Company  was  born. 
It  was  most  brilliantly  exploited,  and  the  earnings  of  the 
Western    Union    were   seriously  affected.     One  day   Mr. 
Vanderbilt,  who  then  controlled  the  last-named  company, 
sent  word  to  Mr.  Gould  to  come  to  his  house  that  even- 
ing.    The  latter  went,  and  was  asked  what  he  wanted. 
I  have  never  heard  what  his  reply  was,  but  it   became 
known  next  day  that  Mr.  Gould  had  the  Western  Union 
Telegraph  Company,  and  he  quickly  amalgamated  with  it 
both  the  American  Union  and  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific, 
placing  the  whole  under  the  active  management  of  General 
Eekert,  with  Dr.  Norvin  Green  at  the  very  head  of  affairs. 
And  thereafter,  up  to  the  time  of  his  fatal  illness,  Mr. 
Gould  was  almost  an  absolute  ruler  of  telegraphic  destinies 
in  this  country.     Though  often  charged  with  abusing  his 
power,  he  was  as  careful,  in  my  judgment,  not  to  take  even 
a  passing  advantage  of  his  position,  or  to  put  in  jeopardy 
any  interests  intrusted  to  his  company,  as  he  was  thought- 
ful and  considerate  of  his  own  sons,  who  have  now  suo- 

187 


ceeded  to  his  enormous  wealth  and  the  attendant  responsi- 
bilities which  their  father  left  them  as  the  result  of  a  life 
of  labor,  abstemiousness  and  a  lively  use  of  the  brains  with 
which  he  was  endowed. 

The  consolidation  to  which  I  have  referred  ended  the 
famous  suit  to  determine  the  real  ownership  of  the  quad- 
ruplex.  The  merits  of  the  case  were  set  aside  by  the 
coalescence  of  the  properties  named,  and  I  fancy  that  if 
they  had  not  been,  the  litigation  would  be  hastening 
toward  a  degree  of  maturity  by  this  time,  warranting  its 
projection  into  the  Supreme  Court.  As  it  was  left,  the 
case  of  the  quadruples  reminds  me  of  the  story  so  quaintly 
told  in  Missouri  dialect  by  John  Hay  as  to  the  ownership 
of  a  certain  whisky  skin  simultaneously  ordered  in  idyllic 
Gilgal  by  Jedge  Phinn  and  Colonel  Blood  of  Pike,  with 
the  difference  that  while  there  was  a  mystery  about  the 
ownership  of  Edison's  patent,  there  was  none  as  to  who 
got  it,  and  if  Mr.  Gould  had  been  in  the  place  of  Jedge 
Phinn,  perhaps  the  poet  would  not  so  grimly  have  written 
of  the  tragical  outcome  of  a  general  battle  among  the 
friends  of  the  principals  claiming  the  single  glass  of  toddy, 
smoking  on  Tom  Taggart's  bar,  that — 

'  They  piled  them  up  outside  the  door; 
They  made,  I  reckon,  a  cord  or  more; 
Girls  went  that  winter,  as  a  rule, 

Alone  to  singing-school. 

*  *  *  * 

But  I  end  with  hit,  as  I  did  begin, 
Who  got  the  whisky  skin?" 

In  1876,  I  remember  that  Edison  and  I  crossed  on  a 
Jersey  City  ferry-boat  together,  and  he  asked  me  if  I  had 

188 


read  a  recent  paragraph  in  the  "  Commercial  Advertiser," 
to  the  effect  that  the  Brooklyn  Bridge  would  be  in  working 
order  about  the  time  that  Edison  succeeded  in  subdi?iding 
the  electric  current.  Replying  that  1  had  not,  Edison 
continued: 

"  That  is  one  of  the  smart  things  that  these  fellows 
write,  and  I  think  Amos  Cummings,  in  the  '  Sun,'  and 
Ned  Fox,  in  the  '  Herald/  are  responsible  for  it.  They 
have  been  recently  printing  a  lot  of  rot  about  the  wizard 
of  Menlo  Park,  and  people  are  stimulated  by  that  sort  of 
thing  to  expect  everything  in  a  minute.  One  of  them — 
Fox,  I  think — says  I  am  a  genius;  but  you  know  well 
enough  I  am  nothing  of  the  sort,  unless,''  he  added, 
thoughtfully,  "  we  accept  DTsraeli's  theory,  that  genius  is 
prolonged  patience.  I  am  patient  enough,  for  sine.  As 
for  the  electric  light,  I've  been  neglecting  it  for  a  lot  of 
other  things — my  telephone,  the  phonograph,  and  so  forth, 
but,"  he  added,  confidently,  "  I'll  subdivide  the  electric 
current  when  I  get  around  to  it,  never  fear.  You  wait 
and  see." 

Well,  I  have  waited,  and  I  have  seen.  It  is  no  part  of 
my  purpose  to  speak  of  the  surpassing  loveliness  of  the 
electric  light.  None  but  a  poet  could  do  it  justice.  Those 
of  you  who  visited  the  World's  Fair  and  saw  the  display  in 
the  Electricity  Building,  who  beheld  the  rim  of  fire  which 
disclosed  against  the  sable  wing  of  night  the  location  of  the 
Ferris  Wheel,  or  who  saw  the  blazing  dome  of  the  Admin- 
istration Building,  the  brilliantly  lighted  lagoons,  the  won- 
derful search-lights  and  electric  fountains,  or  who,  in 
short,  have  seen  the  electric  light  in  its  less  conspicuous 

189 


phases  in  the  hotels  and  private  residences  of  your  own 
cities,  will  readily  concede  that  Edison  did  not  overstate 
his  ability  when  he  assured  me  that  he  would  subdivide 
the  electric  current  when  it  suited  his  convenience  to  do 
so.  With  the  advent  of  the  electric  light,  with  its  gen- 
erators and  other  paraphernalia,  great  strides  were  imme- 
diately made  in  applying  this  practically  new-found  power. 
Aside  from  the  development  of  the  thing  itself,  electric 
lighting  on  a  large  scale  led  to  the  propulsion  of  street- 
cars by  means  of  electricity,  and  it  has  now  been  applied  to 
almost  everything.  But  perhaps  the  benefits  of  its  intro- 
duction are  larger  in  connection  with  the  trolley-car  than 
in  any  other  direction.  The  dingy  tenements  of  the  town 
are  being  deserted  every  day  for  the  little  homes  lying 
along  the  routes  of  the  trolley-cars.  On  almost  every 
country  road  leading  to  and  from  towns  and  villages,  the 
electric  car,  combining  the  cheapest  possible  form  of  con- 
veyance with  a  rate  of  speed  which  puts  the  horse  to  shame, 
is  making  its  rounds  and  bringing  comfort  and  an  im- 
proved condition  of  life  to  hundreds  upon  hundreds.  The 
anxious  mother,  eager  to  make  secure  the  health  of  her 
children;  the  toiling  father  of  the  family  and  the  little  ones 
find  greater  happiness,  a  more  perfect  freedom  and  better 
health,  through  the  change  from  the  crowded  houses  of  the 
poor  to  the  wayside  cottages,  many  of  them  surrounded  by 
gardens,  and  some  of  them  half  hidden  by  climbing  vines. 
The  charming  Autocrat  of  the  Bieakfast  Table,  snugly 
ensconced  in  his  library  at  Beverly  Farms,  wrote  satirically 
in  the  "  Atlantic  Monthly  "  of  the  Broom  Stick  Train, 
and  the  late  Mr.  Curtis,  living  in  peace  and  quietness  on 

190 


Staten  Island,  lifted  up  his  voice  in  simulated  anger  in  the 
Easy  Chair  when  the  electric  car  for  the  first  time  passed 
by  his  residence  like  a  flash,  and  went  bounding  up  the 
road  to  an  adjacent  village.  But  none  knew  better  than 
Dr.  Holmes  and  he  whose  delightful  philosophy  so  many 
of  us  read  month  after  month,  during  many  years,  in 
"  Harper's  Magazine  " — none  knew  better  than  they  that 
this  disturber  of  their  day-dreams  was  destined  to  bring 
manifold  blessings  to  their  fellow-men.  They  showed  by 
their  example  that  they  believed  the  country,  which  God 
had  made,  is  a  better  place  for  woman,  child  and  man 
than  is  the  city,  which  has  been  created  by  human  hands, 
and  in  their  sympathetic  hearts  they  rejoiced,  no  doubt, 
over  the  improved  condition  of  their  fellow-men,  which 
was  inevitable  as  an  outcome  of  this  wonderful  agent  for 
the  depopulation  of  the  tenement  and  the  upbuilding  of 
little  homes  scattered  by  the  roadside  between  the  towns. 
Formerly  the  toilers  in  foundry,  factory  and  workshop 
lived  within  the  shadow  of  the  great  buildings  in  which  so 
much  of  their  time  was  spent.  At  night  they  breathed 
the  smoke-laden  atmosphere  hovering  over  their  miserable 
quarters;  their  wives  and  children  existed  in  a  polluted 
atmosphere  destructive  to  their  moral  and  mental  health 
and  often  fatal  to  their  physical  welfare.  To-day,  in  a 
very  considerable  measure,  the  environment  is  vastly 
bettered;  the  children  play  in  the  sunshine,  their  senses 
know  the  odor  of  flowers,  the  beauty  of  clear  skies,  the 
music  of  birds  and  the  melody  of  the  winds  soughing 
through  nodding  trees.  Their  moral  as  well  as  their 
physical  natures  must  profit  by  all  this.     They  will  make 


better,  stronger  and  happier  men  and  women  for  having 
a  means  at  hand  of  making  the  tenement  house  no  longer 
their  only  refuge.  The  father  works  more  cheerfully  than 
before,  because  he  knows  that  when  the  evening  has  come 
he  will  be  out  in  the  country,  whisked  there  so  rapidly 
that,  before  he  knows  it,  the  forges,  the  chimneys,  aud  all 
the  unlovely  things  with  which  he  is  surrounded  when  at 
work  will  be  left  behind  to  remind  him  no  more  of  their 
existence,  until,  refreshed  by  sleep  and  reinvigorated  by 
rest  in  a  pure  atmosphere,  he  cheerfully  retraces  the  course 
of  his  evening  journey,  and,  with  a  heart  more  hopeful  for 
the  change,  goes  about  his  work,  singing  maybe,  because 
there  is  something  different,  something  better,  awaiting 
him  when  the  day  is  done.  Edison,  more  than  any  other 
man,  has  brought  about  this  change,  because  he  pointed 
the  way  which  others  have  followed  with  such  grand 
results. 

Those  of  you  who  are  familiar  with  the  important  part 
played  to-day  in  the  making  of  newspapers  by  the  tele- 
graph, the  cable  and  the  telephone  have  never  thought,  per- 
haps, of  the  difficulties  surrounding  the  introduction  of  each 
and  all  of  them.  The  story  of  Professor  Morse  and  his  futile 
attempts  to  obtain  an  appropriation  from  Congress  with 
which  to  construct  his  experimental  line  between  Washing- 
ton and  Baltimore  has  often  been  told,  however,  and  can 
not  be  new  to  many  present,  but  I  refer  to  it  more  to 
render  it  pertinent  to  say  that  the  telegraph  was  made  pos- 
sible by  a  woman.  The  widow  of  the  late  Roswell  Smith, 
editor  of  the  "  Century  Magazine/'  while  she  was  Miss 
Ellsworth,  the  daughter  of  the  Commissioner  of  Patents 

192 


serving  under  President  Tyler,  was  greatly  interested  in 
the  invention  of  the  young  painter  who  had  turned  his 
attention  from  recognized  art  to  experimental  science.  She 
saw  him  returning  from  the  Capitol  day  after  day,  dis- 
heartened and  almost  hopeless,  and  when  she  saw  Morse 
on  the  verge  of  despair  she  imbued  him  with  new  courage 
by  her  sweet  sympathy  and  by  the  repeated  assurance  that 
she  had  implicit  faith  in  his  complete  triumph.  When 
that  triumph  came,  tardily  enough,  too,  and  after  the 
appropriation  of  $30,000  had  narrowly  escaped  being  split 
up  so  that  a  third  should  be  devoted  to  mesmeric  experi- 
ments and  another  third  to  investigating  what  is  known  as 
Millerism— when  that  triumph  came,  Miss  Ellsworth,  by 
a  most  commendable  but  unusual  display  of  thoughtful- 
ness,  was  chosen  as  the  person  to  send  the  first  message 
over  the  wire.  "  What  hath  God  wrought  "  were  the  words 
chosen  by  her  to  inaugurate  the  operation  of  what  has 
now  come  to  be  to  commercial  and  social  life  wiiat  the 
nerves  are  to  a  human  being.  And  her  words  are  still 
ringing  in  our  ears. 

Bishop  Potter  has  said  that  nothing  is  so  unpopular  as 
an  innovation.  Let  us  see.  When  Morse's  line  was 
working  as  smoothly  as  the  telegraph  is  working  to-day, 
after  a  lapse  of  nearly  fifty  years,  and  a  message  was 
brought  from  Baltimore  to  Washington  announcing  that 
Silas  Wright  had  been  chosen  to  run  on  the  Presidential! 
ticket  with  James  K.  Polk,  an  answer  was  immediately 
returned  saying  that  Mr.  Wright  declined  the  honor.  The 
Solons  of  that  day  and  generation  in  convention  assembled 
were  not  to  be  beguiled  by  any  diaphanous  stories  purport- 

193 


ing  to  come  from  Washington  by  a  process  so  palpably 
open  to  suspicion  as  the  telegraph,  so  they  adjourned  over 
while  a  committee  went  to  Washington  and  sadly  returned 
with  the  confirmation  of  Mr.  Wright's  expressed  desire  not 
to  serve.  That  great  telegraphic  veteran,  David  Brooks, 
of  Philadelphia,  once  told  me  that  when  he  was  the  mana- 
ger of  the  telegraph  office  in  Harrisburg — and  he  said  he 
could  not  remember  the  year,  but  added  that  it  was 
along  about  the  time  the  soldiers  were  coming  home  from 
the  Mexican  War — that  when  he  was  manager  at  Harris- 
burg he  could  not  get  business  enough  to  pay  his  board. 
He  added  that  people  regarded  the  telegraph  as  a  toy,  and 
never  thought  of  using  it  for  any  serious  purpose,  using 
the  mails  for  their  ordinary  communications  with  Phila- 
delphia, and  "  when  they  were  in  a  great  hurry  to  receive 
intelligence,"  said  Mr.  Brooks,  "  they  went  to  Philadel- 
phia in  person.  They  usually  walked,  but  in  cases  of 
extreme  urgency  they  took  a  conveyance.  It  never 
occurred  to  them  to  use  the  telegraph." 

When,  after  years  of  labor  and  a  display  of  almost 
superhuman  patience,  the  Atlantic  Cable  was  finished, 
very  few  persons  believed  that  messages  passed  over  it. 
After  a  few  days  it  ceased  to  work,  and  as  no  one  knew 
the  reason  why,  the  public  shrugged  its  shoulders  and 
knowingly  referred  to  Barnum  in  a  familiar  way  and 
quoted  his  assertion  that  the  American  public  liked  to 
be  humbugged.  In  that  first  cable  very  thin  wires  of  low 
conductivity  and  correspondingly  high  resistance  were 
used,  and  the  life  of  the  fragile  conductor  was  destroyed, 
just  as  by  a  decree  of  the  New  York  Legislature  human 

194 


lite  is  ended  in  the  fatal  chair  where  Kemmler  sat  at  Au- 
burn, and  in  which  many  others  doomed  to  die  have 
quickly  and  without  a  sign  passed  from  life  to  death. 
When  we  reflect  that  according  to  the  electricians  the 
needle  of  a  galvanometer  can  be  deflected  on  the  Irish 
coast  by  such  electricity  as  can  be  generated  on  this  side  of 
the  ocean  by  the  action  upon  it  of  what  acidulated  water 
can  be  held  in  a  percussion  cap,  it  is  not  difficult  to  under- 
stand that  the  first  cable  failed  from  a  too  heavy  applica- 
tion of  battery.  It  was  simply  burned  to  death.  After 
that,  a  few  years  later,  came  the  second  cable,  which  was 
a  success.  But  it  was  not  much  used,  and  years  were 
required  in  which  to  teach  the  people,  the  newspapers  and 
the  commercial  world  the  value  of  instantaneous  connec- 
tion with  Europe.  It  was  a  great  achievement  to  have 
established  this  system  of  communication  under  the  seas 
and  the  patient  and  persistent  endeavor  of  Cyrus  W.  Field 
should  never  have  been  forgotten.  But  he  is  gone,  and  for 
many  years  prior  to  his  demise  no  one  thought  of  him  as 
the  man  who  brought  the  dwellers  on  both  sides  of  the 
ocean  to  think  of  the  same  things  at  the  same  moment 
and  who  in  doing  so  gave  civilization  one  of  its  greatest 
upward  movements.  He  became  a  speculator  and  was 
plucked  by  Samuel  J.  Tilden,  and  afterward,  in  a  game  of 
financial  fisticuffs  over  the  affairs  of  the  Manhattan  Ele- 
vated Kailroad,  his  antagonist,  Mr.  Gould,  was  an  easy 
winner.  Mr.  Field  died  comparatively  poor;  but  however 
dimly  his  light  had  burned  for  a  few  years  preceding  his 
death,  he  was  a  wonderful  man,  full  of  determination' 
stopping  at  nothing,  and   sanguine   that  his  scheme    of 

105 


oceanic  communication  was  practicable.  I  had  heard  of 
the  many  trips  he  had  made  to  Europe  on  cable  business, 
and  meeting  him  in  Washington  a  dozen  years  ago,  I  said: 
"  You  have  crossed  the  Atlantic  sixty  times,  I  hear." 
"  Yes,"  he  replied.  "  I  have  made  sixty-four  trips  and 
was  seasick  on  every  one  of  them." 

The  first  time  I  ever  heard  of  the  telephone,  an  operator 
in  the  Western  Union  Telegraph  Company's  office,  in  New 
York,  whose  father  was  a  preacher  in  Canada,  received 
a  copy  of  a  Brantford  newspaper,  in  which  it  was  stated 
that  a  man  named  Alexander  Graham  Bell  had  trans- 
mitted speech  by  wire  from  Brantford  to  a  neighboring 
town.  It  seemed  incredible,  but  our  telegraphic  comrade 
called  attention  to  the  circumstance  that  his  father  was 
a  godly  man,  and  as  he  had  said  in  an  accompanying  letter 
that  he  heard  it  done  with  his  own  ears,  we  held  our  peace. 
The  newspaper  announcement,  however,  made  no  impres- 
sion on  the  public,  and  a  year  or  more  afterward,  when 
Professor  Bell  came  to  New  York  to  demonstrate  that 
he  could  telephone  from  that  city  to  Brooklyn,  not  more 
than  a  dozen  out  of  a  hundred  invited  guests  appeared  at 
the  St.  Denis  Hotel  to  witness  the  experiment.  I  was  one 
of  the  dozen,  and  we  were  unanimous  in  the  opinion,  when 
the  experiments  were  concluded,  that  the  whole  thing  was 
a  toy,  if  not  an  absolute  humbug.  Professor  Bell  met 
with  many  discouragements,  but  obstinately  pursued  his 
experiments,  and  made  sufficient  improvements  in  his 
apparatus  to  have  a  proposition  for  the  adoption  of  his 
invention  by  the  American  District  Telegraph  Company 
seriously  considered.      He  wanted,  if  my  memory  serves 

196 


me  well,  the  sum  of  five  thousand  dollars  per  annum  for 
the  exclusive  use  of  his  American  rights,  that  rate  of  pay- 
ment to  continue  during  the  life  of  the  patents.     This  was 
soberly  considered  by   the  Board  of  Directors,  and  they 
solemnly  resolved  that,  the  telephone  being  rather  in  the 
nature  of  a  novelty,  it  would  not  be  consistent  with  tbe 
dignity  of  their  company  to  associate  it  with  so  serious  a 
business  as  that  involved  in  the  delivery  of  messages,  letters 
and  parcels  by  uniformed  messengers.     Professor  Bell  was 
forced  to  seek  other  alliances,  and  you  have  seen  the  result. 
The  telegraph  of  the  long  ago,  which  would  not  yield  in 
Harrisburg  money  enough  to  pay  the  board  of  a  man  who 
has  since  shown  himself  to  be  great,  and  who  at  that  time 
combined  in  himself  tbe    position  of    operator,    lineman, 
battery-man,  messenger  and  manager,  is  as  much  an  essen- 
tial in  our  daily  life  to-day  as  are  the  railroads,  the  steam- 
boats and  the  mails.     The  Atlantic  cable,  almost  wholly 
disused  for  two  or  three  years,  is  as  freely  employed  now 
as  are  the  land  lines.     The  invention  that  the  American 
District    Telegraph    Company  of    New    York    rejected, 
because  it  seemed  only  a  trifling  thing,  has  been  perfected 
to  a  degree  admitting  of  easy  conversation  between  points 
as  far  distant  as  New  York  and  Chicago.     Great  fortunes 
have  been  amassed  out  of  each  and  all  of  these  different 
mediums  of  communication,  and  the  welfare   of  man  has 
been  greatly  enhanced  by  them.     And  yet,  difficult  as  it 
would  be  to-day  to  transact  business  without  them,  none  of 
them  was  adopted  without  a  struggle  in   which   progress 
battled  with  prejudice,  but  out  of  which  progress  happily 
came  forth  a  gallant  victor. 

197 


Everywhere  in  this  country,  where  newspapers  of  any 
size  are  published,  they  are  served  with  the  telegraphic 
news  of  the  world  over  wires  leased  for  that  especial  pur- 
pose and  operated  by  men  selected  with  a  particular  view 
to  handling  press  reports  in  a  rapid,  efficient  and  intelli- 
gent manner.  This  condition  grew  out  of  the  leasing  by 
the  New  York  Associated  Press  of  a  wire  between  New 
York  and  Washington  in  1875.  Mr.  Orton  predicted  a 
failure,  and  he  combated  the  idea  and  delayed  action  on 
the  proposition  for  }rears.  But  he  finally  yielded,  with  the 
assertion  and  expectation  that  the  experiment  would  be 
a  failure.  But  it  was  not,  and  wires  to  Boston,  to  Buffalo 
and  finally  to  Chicago,  were  soon  called  for  by  the  various 
press  associations,  until,  as  I  have  said,  the  leased  wire 
system  is  no;v  almost  universal.  The  newspapers  here  in 
Columbus  are  equipped  with  it,  and  with  men  as  skillful 
and  as  intelligent  as  any  employed  in  New  York  or  Chi- 
cago. It  was  my  good  fortune,  as  one  of  the  lieutenants 
of  the  late  James  W.  Simonton,  to  select  the  men  to  work 
that  pioneer  leased  wire  from  New  York  to  Washington. 
There  were  eight  of  them,  two  each  at  New  York,  Phila- 
delphia, Baltimore  and  Washington,  and  I  am  glad  to  be 
able  to  say  that  after  nineteen  years  they  are  all  alive  and 
well,  and  that  all  of  them  are  still  in  the  j)ress  service. 
These  eight  men  founded  a  system,  and  are  worth  know- 
ing, if  only  by  name,  for  they  made  an  assault  and  carried 
a  position  against  the  prejudice  of  a  great  telegraph  com- 
pany, its  officers  and  employees.  Besides,  there  were 
never  eight  men  who  could  telegraph  better  than  Fred.  N. 
Bassett,    P.  V.  De  Graw,   W.    H.    C.    Hargrave,  W.  G. 

198 


Jones,  Thomas  J.  Bishop,  H.  A.  Wells,  W.  N.  Gove  and 
E.  C.  Boileau.  I  have  mentioned  Boileau  last  because  he 
was  lirst  of  all,  if  there  were  any  choice  among  them. 

"  Nothing  is  so  unpopular  as  an  innovation,"  said  Bis- 
hop Potter.     I  think  he  spoke  the  truth. 

No  man  shall  excel  me  in  a  quick  perception  of  what 
has  been  done  to  increase  the  value  of  human  life  and  the 
sum  of  earthly  happiness  by  the  painters,  the  sculptors  and 
the  writers  of  books  and  music.  Nor  do  I  forget  how 
much  we  owe  to  Howe,  whose  invention  brightened  the 
hard  lives  of  the  women  who  were  compelled  by  circum- 
stances to  ply  the  needle  far  into  the  night;  to  Stevenson, 
whose  efforts  to  compass  land  locomotion  by  steam  have 
eventuated  in  our  being  able  to  travel  luxuriously  from 
New  York  to  Chicago  in  the  incredibly  short  space  of 
twenty  hours;  to  Fulton,  whose  uncouth  steamboat,  worry- 
ing noisily  through  the  glad  waters  of  the  storied  Hudson, 
has  been  succeeded  by  floating  palaces  in  which  we  cross  the 
seas;  to  Hany  who  created  a  system  enabling  the  blind  to 
read;  to  the  Gallaudets  who  have  perfected  a  sign  language 
for  the  deaf  and  a  system  of  articulation  for  those  hitherto 
deemed  to  be  dumb,  or  to  the  hundreds  of  men  and  women 
who  have  made  the  world  happier,  wiser  and  better  for 
having  lived  in  it.  Like  the  royal  wanderer  amid  the 
leafy  woods  of  Arden  who  heard  sermons  from  stones, 
music  in  the  whispering  of  the  trees,  and  who  found  books 
in  the  running  brooks  and  good  in  everything,  so  I,  scan- 
ning the  names  upon  the  scroll  of  fame,  feel  to  the  full 
how  much  the  world  owes  to  its  conspicuous  men  and 
women.     They  listen  to  the  sermon-yielding  stones,  and 

199 


they  know  the  truths  written  in  the  books  found  in  the 
running  brooks.  In  short,  they  have  found  and  inculcated 
upon  mankind  that  good  resides  in  everything.  And  yet, 
useful  as  is  the  sewing-machine,  grand  as  have  become  in 
their  practical  application  the  dreams  of  Stevenson  and 
Fulton,  much  as  we  are  indebted  to  the  beneficent  brother- 
hood of  philanthropists,  and  to  the  pioneers  in  pushing 
onward  the  car  of  progress,  the  men  who  have  added  the 
final  touch  to  the  magnificent  development  of  the  last  fifty 
years  have  been  they  who,  building  upon  the  discovery  that 
electricity  could  be  made  a  ready  servant,  gave  us  the 
telegraph,  the  ocean  cable,  the  telephone,  the  trolley-car 
and  a  light  rivaling  the  sun  itself — an  artificial  radiance 
more  beautiful  than  the  mind  of  man  could  imagine  fifty 
years  ago — a  light  which  it  seems  to  me  has  touched  the 
zenith  for  both  utility  and  splendor. 

Therefore,  to  retrace  my  steps  and  return  after  this 
desultory  wandering  away  from  it  to  my  original  proposi- 
tion, I  am  justified,  I  think,  in  view  of  how  and  by  whom 
electricity  was  first  made  captive,  and  considering  the  man 
who  has  been  most  conspicuous  in  making  aud  in  suggest- 
ing applications  of  it  in  so  many  unexpected  ways — I  am 
justified,  I  say,  in  asserting  that  any  man  should  be  proud 
that  he  was  once  a  printer  as  Benjamin  Franklin  was,  or 
that  his  hand  once  knew  and  still  retains,  perhaps,  the 
cunning  that  was  learned  in  the  rugged  school  of  tele- 
graphic experience  in  which  Thomas  Alva  Edison  was  also 
a  pupil. 


ROBERT  HOWELL. 

BY  WALTER   P.    PHILLIPS. 

"  I  reckon  I'll  have  to  squeeze  in  thar  alongside  o'  you, 
while  they  make  up  them  bunks." 

The  speaker  made  this  observation  while  he  was  taking 
his  seat.  He  was  a  long,  lank  specimen  of  humanity  with 
an  abundance  of  yellowish  brown  chin  whiskers  which  h« 
stroked  caressingly  when  he  was  speaking.  I  had  been 
traveling  for  two  days,  and  had  made  the  acquaintance  of 
several  marked  types  of  character,  and  I  discerned  in  the 
new  comer  still  another  who  would  no  doubt  contribute  his 
share  to  my  entertainment.  The  train  was  just  pulling  away 
from  the  depot  at  Dayton,  Ohio,  and  I  was  seated  in  one 
of  the  sections  which  had  not  yet  been  arranged  for  the 
night.  I  gave  the  gentleman  a  gracious  reception,  and  as 
soon  as  he  was  settled  comfortably  in  his  seat  and  had  sur- 
veyed me  to  his  satisfaction,  he  inquired: 

"  Been  traveling  fur?  " 

Learning  that  I  had  come  through  from  Denver,  he  spoke 
of  the  journey  as  a  "right  smart  jaunt,"  and  volunteered 
the  information  that  he  had  never  been  west  of  Dayton. 

"  I  am  from  South,"  he  explained.  "  I  went  down  thar 
from  York  State  when  I  was  a  boy.  I  am  now  in  the  saw- 
mill business  in  Floridy.  I  used  to  be  in  the  telegraph  busi- 
ness, at  Key  West,  where  they  relay  business  between  New 
York  and  Havana,  but  I  grew  kinder  tired  of  it  and  branched 
out.  But  sawmills  is  durn  poor  property  in  Floridy  after 
the  first  of  February,  and  I've  some  notion  o'  stopping  over 
in  New  York  and  trying  my  hand  at  the  old  biz  for  a  spell." 

"Are  you  an  operator?"  I  inquired,  cherishing  a  vague 
suspicion  that  I  might  be  addressing  an  ex-lineman. 

"Be  I?    Well,  I  guess." 

Experiencing  a  fellow-feeling  at  once,  I  remarked  that  1 
too,  was  an  operator,  and  very  likely  we  had  heard  of  each 
other.     Then  I  gave  him  my  name. 

201 


"  Why,  Walter,  old  man,"  he  replied,  with  fervency,  "  your 
name  is  a  household  word  among  the  boys.  Yes  siree,  we 
are  old  timers,  you  and  me.  I  see  Andy  Carnegie  has  got 
rich:  that  Homer  Bates,  Albert  Chandler,  and  a  lot  of  the 
Union  military  telegraph  men  are  getting  up  in  the  world 
all  right,  and  in  the  meantime  we  ain't  no  chickens,  be  we? 
CM  the  comparatively  new  reegimmy,  I  don't  know  many — 
Fred  Catlin,  Eddie  Welch,  Denny  Harmon,  Willis  Jones, 
Court  Cunningham,  and  a  few  other  old-time  stars.  They 
are  shiners  all  right,  even  now,  though  I  haint  seen  any  of 
'em  in  years.  P'raps  you've  heard  of  me.  My  name  is  Bob 
Howell.  It  must  be  fifteen  years  ago  I  gave  up  the  business. 
I  used  to  be  an  old  paster — reg'lar  greased  chain  lightning — 
and  yesterday  I  got  a  string  put  through  from  Dayton  to 
New  York  to  yawp  with  Al  Sink — of  course  you  know  Al? 
— about  giving  me  a  job.  It  come  jes'  as  natural  as  ever. 
I  suppose  I  was  the  fastest  sender — maniperlatur  they  call 
'em  now,  I  reckon— in  the  South,  one  time,  and  I  can  snatch 
'em  right  smart  now.  What  they  paying  for  salaries  now, 
d'ye  know?  " 

"  All  sorts,"  I  replied.  "  It  depends  a  good  deal  on  what 
one  received  when  he  left  the  service,  what  his  record  was, 
and  the  character  of  the  work  he  can  do  now." 

"  Well,  you  bet  my  work  was  Ai.  Yes,  cully,  it  was 
prime  mess.  I  left  on  a  salary  of  $118,  and  thar  wan't  no 
better  operators  than  me — thar  ain't  none  now." 

To  this  I  could  not,  of  course,  offer  any  objection  and 
presently  my  companion  went  on  meditatively: 

"  I  guess  I'll  strike  'em  for  a  hundred  anyhow,  and  I 
hear  they  pay  extra  after  seven  hours'  work.  I  ain't  going 
to  stay  for  long,  say  four  or  five  months.  Sawing  will  be 
good  by  that  time,  and  I  must  get  back  to  old  Floridy. 
What  I  want,"  he  continued  confidentially,  "  is  to  save  a 
hundred  dollars  a  month,  and"  he  added  vigorously,  "  I'll 
do  it  or  bust.  I'm  on  the  U.  S. — unmitigated  scoop — and  I 
don't  mind  working  sixteen  hours  a  day.  I  don't  want  no 
loafing  around  the  boarding  place  in  mine.  All  I  want  is  a 
bunk  for  about  six  hours,  and  to  put  in  my  loafing  time  right 
in  the  W.  U.  operating  room,  at  195  Broadway,  at  forty- 
seven  cents  an  hour.     Oh,  I  know  the  ropes  and  I'm  pizen 

202 


on  the  work  when  it's  thar  to  be  done.  But,"  he  concluded 
decisively,  "  I've  got  to  get  money  to  live  on  and  save  a 
hundred  dollars  a  month;    think  I  can  do  it  ?" 

I  assented. 

"  Well,  I'll  show  'em  a  thing  or  two  when  I  get  thar.  I 
used  to  send  sixty-five  messages  an  hour,  and  the  longer  I 
send,  the  pizener  I  get.  I've  heerd  about  their  big  receivers 
down  to  Duxbury  and  round,  but  they  want  to  get  their 
shirts  oft'  when  I  shake  myself  into  position,  you  hear  me." 

"  You  won't  get  the  Duxbury  men  unless  you  work  in  the 
Cable  Department,  down  in  Broad  Street,  and  if  you  should, 
1  fancy  you  will  find  them  a  marvelous  set  of  receivers. 
They " 

"Oh,  'tainTno  use,"  interrupted  Mr.  Howell;  "they  can't 
catch  me.  They  might  for  an  hour,  but  when  I  get  on  my 
feathers,  thar  ain't  no  living  man  that  can  follow  me;"  and 
he  drew  from  his  pantaloons  pocket  a  narrow  strip  of 
tobacco  about  fourteen  inches  long,  and  biting  off  a  goodly 
quid,  he  continued: 

"  I'm  a  J.  R. — Johnny  Reb.  Say  Walter!  I've  got  to  have 
that  hundred  a  month,  clean  mun,  for  a  special  purpose.  A 
little  woman  is  sick.  Well,  sir,  I  was  at  Atlanta  mostly  dur- 
ing the  war.  I  worked  in  that  office  night  and  day  for 
fourteen  days.  Thar  was  no  one  left  thar  but  me,  and 
General  Joe  Johnston  had  gin  an  order  not  to  close  office. 
When  the  necessity  for  my  presence  on  deck  had  passed, 
his  orderly  forgot  to  revoke  the  order,  and  so  your  friend 
Robert  H.  was  '  stuck.'  I've  often  sent  six  hundred  mes- 
sages in  ten  hours.  I  used  to  get  so  wore  out  that  I  had  to 
hang  'em  up  and  take  a  nap  in  my  chair.  Then  I  would 
take  a  lot  from  the  South,  get  Richmond  and  go  for  'em 
again.  I  never  saw  but  one  man — Old  Dad  Sullivan — that 
could  take  me  without  a  break.  Maybe  them  Duxbury 
roosters  can  do  it." 

Then,  after  a  long  and  vigorous  working  upon  the  tobacco 
in  his  mouth  he  added  in  an  undertone: 

"  Dern  my  skin,  but  I  would  like  to  give  'em  a  pull,  just 
for  fun,  on  seven  or  nine  hundred  cables." 

"  Do  you  purpose  to  bring  your  wife  on  to  New  York, 
or ■" 

203 


"  Go  easy,  old  man,"  said  Mr.  Howell,  interrupting  me 
again.  "  That  is  my  one  weak  point,  just  now.  I  ain't  got 
none."  Then  after  a  pause  he  observed  abruptly:  "  See 
here,  you  are  one  of  my  kind,  I'll  tell  you  how  I  am  fixed." 

At  this  juncture  the  porter  drove  us  out  of  our  seat,  and 
we  repaired  to  the  rear  of  the  car  where,  perching  himself 
upon  the  sink  in  a  comfortable  position,  my  friend  chewed 
his  tobacco  and  talked  while  I  leaned  up  against  the  door 
and  smoked  a  cigar. 

"  It  was  this  way,"  observed  Mr.  Howell.  "  In  '62  I  was 
with  the  army  as  a  telegraph  operator — sort  of  on  John- 
ston's staff  like.  One  day  a  fellow  named  Joe  Jacques  came 
through  the  lines  bringing  his  wife.  She  was  a  mighty 
pretty  woman,  and  uncommonly  smart.  Jacques  was  from 
Ohio,  here,  but  his  wife  was  a  Virginian.  They  had  lived 
South  a  good  deal,  and  Jacques  being  of  no  account,  and  his 
wife  a  strong  secession  sympathizer,  they  naturally  got 
identified  with  our  side.  Jacques  went  for  a  sojer  pretty 
soon  and  his  wife  kept  along  with  us  as  a  sort  of  nurse  to 
the  sick  and  hurt.  She  was  pretty  hard  put  most  of  the  time, 
poor  girl,  Jacques  being  a  good  deal  of  a  drinker  and  quar- 
relsome when  drunk.  Yet,  he  contrived  with  all  his  faults 
to  make  quite  a  reputation  as  a  scout.  But  he  was  precious 
little  use  or  comfort  to  '  Min,'  as  he  called  his  wife,  and  if 
it  hadn't  been  for  General  Johnston  and  his  officers,  she 
would  have  died  of  hunger  and  neglect.  You  remember 
how  we  caught  it  at  Jackson  in  '63,  don't  ye?  U.  S.  G.  had 
got  his  galinippers  on  Vicksburg,  and  General  Johnston 
allowed  to  tackle  him  in  the  rear  and  make  him  raise  the 
siege.  While  Johnston  was  thinking  about  it,  what  does  the 
old  man  do  but  send  Tecump  Sherman  with  the  Thirteenth 
and  Fifteenth  army  corps  down  in  our  direction,  and  inside 
a  week  with  Sherman  straddling  the  Pearl  River  we  found 
it  sociable  to  light  out  for  Brandon.  Three  days  before 
we  went — this  was  the  second  time  Jackson  was  taken,  you 
know — our  fellows  made  a  sortie  and,  under  cover  of  a  big 
fog,  advanced  a  brigade  of  infantry  and  several  batteries  of 
artillery  against  Sherman's  right  line  with  a  hope  of  breaking 
it,  but  it  was  of  no  use.  The  suddenness  of  the  movement 
and  the   skill  with  which  it  was  executed  was   O.    K.,  but 

204 


Sherman  wouldn't  hist  a  foot.  When  we  got  over  to  Bran- 
don Jacques  was  missing.  We  all  supposed  he  was  dead  and 
planted  all  comfortable,  and  we  didn't  much  care  if  he  was. 
We  hadn't  trusted  him  for  some  time,  and  he  would  have 
went  over  to  the  enemy  any  time  he  got  a  chance.  Any- 
how, not  hearing  anything  from  him  in  three  years,  his  wife 
and  me  was  pretty  fond  of  each  other  by  this  time,  consid- 
ered him  dead,  sure  enough,  and  we  married.  In  1867,  we 
went  to  Floridy  and  for  thirty  years  we  was  mighty  happy. 
I  got  me  a  small  place  and  what  with  our  two  boys  and  a 
girl  growing  up  and  getting  married,  everything  was  as 
smooth  and  pleasant  as  we  could  ask.  I  got  so  happy  that 
I  even  thought  of  Jacques  in  a  kindly  way,  when  the  anniver- 
saries of  the  final  evacuation  of  Jackson  came  around,  and 
if  I  had  known  where  his  grave  was,  I  believe  I  should  have 
decorated  it  up  every  year,  just  as  a  bit  of  gratitude  for  the 
happiness  his  supposed  death  had  brought  to  me." 

The  speaker  stopped  here  and  brushed  his  coat  sleeve 
across  his  eyes.  He  then  renewed  his  acquaintance  with  the 
long,  narrow  strip  of  tobacco  and  proceeded: 

"  Last  Christmas  who  comes  to  the  surface  but  Joe 
Jacques.  He'd  been  in  the  Regular  Army,  he  said,  and 
made  some  money  as  a  sutler.  Then,  thinking  his  wife  was 
dead,  he'd  married  a  Mississippi  girl  and  been  running  a 
plantation  for  the  last  twenty-five  years.  Lately  his  Missis- 
sippi wife  had  died,  and  simultaneous  he  heard  that  Minnie 
was  married  to  me;  that  accounted  for  his  appearance.  The 
situation  was  rather  awkward.  I  allowed  since  he  had  mar- 
ried again,  Mrs.  Howell  was  free;  but  Minnie  had  her  doubts. 
It  wore  on  her  terrible,  until  him  and  me  got  to  swapping 
threats,  and  fin'ly  I  gin  Mr.  Josephus  Jacques  twelve  hours 
to  hump  himself  out  of  Floridy,  or  I  would  blow  a  hole  in 
him  as  big  as  a  hoe-cake.  Well,  he  went  out  here  to  Dayton, 
and  there  he  begins  writing  letters  to  Minnie.  Then,  to 
cap  the  whole  doggoned  climax,  he  goes  out  gunning  one 
day,  blows  his  ugly  mug  full  of  powder  and  gets  stone  blind, 
That  settled  it.  My  wife  just  said  it  was  Fate,  and  she 
must  go  do  her  duty  by  her  first  husband.  So  she  goes  out 
there  and  she  is  there  now." 

Then   the   honest    fellow   gasped   with   tears   in   his   voice: 

205 


"  And  she  is  dying,  too,  old  man."  After  a  pause,  he  re- 
sumed: 

"  She  wrote  down  to  me  for  to  come  out  and  bring  the 
children.  I've  done  it,  and  I've  left  them  thar  temporary  to 
comfort  my  poor  girl  in  her  great  trouble.  There's  five  on 
'em  and  we  love  'em  even  more'n  we  did  our  own  children. 
I  reckon  it  is  often  so  with  the  grand-children.  It  cost  me 
a  heap  o'  money  to  get  us  all  from  Floridy  out  to  Dayton, 
and  it's  put  me  in  the  hole  terrible.  That's  what  I'm  going 
a  brass  pounding  for,  to  catch  up  again.  It's  tough  now, 
ain't  it,  the  way  things  turn  out?  But  I  don't  complain;  I 
only  wish  she  was  happier,  for  Jacques  ain't  using  her  right, 
and  then  she  can't  stand  it  long  in  this  climate,  for  her  lungs 
is  weak.  I  don't  reckon  she'll  ever  live  to  see  the  flowers 
blossom  another  year." 

I  had  thrown  away  my  cigar  as  the  speaker  concluded 
his  narrative,  and  was  gazing  out  of  the  window  in  no 
mood  for  speech,  when  I  was  aroused  by  the  porter's  an- 
nouncement, "  Berths  ready  for  you,  now,  gemmens,"  and 
turning,  I  beheld  my  friend  still  sitting  on  the  marble  sink 
chewing  as  he  caressed  his  tawny  whiskers,  and  pondering. 
I  gave  him  my  hand  and  said  "  good-night,"  whereupon  he 
ejaculated,  as  if  a  new  thought  had  struck  him:  "  Say,  you 
read  a  good  deal,  I  reckon.  Now,  ain't  thar  a  book  called 
'  Married  for  Both  Worlds  '  ?" 

I  answered  that  I  believed  there  was. 

"  So  she  told  me,  and  she  wants  me  to  read  it;  but  I  never 
read  a  book  through  in  all  my  life.  I'll  have  to  get  it  though, 
and  do  the  best  I  can  with  it.     Good-night,  old  man." 

As  I  was  tumbling  into  my  berth,  cogitating  over  this 
pathetic  story,  Howell  approached  and  whispered:  ;<  I'll 
read  that  book;  there's  a  good  deal  in  it,  I  expect;  and  up 
there,"  pointing  toward  the  thoughtful  stars,  "  I  reckon  Joe 
Jacques  is  going  to  get  most  awfully  left." 


206 


RAPID  TELEGRAPHY. 

BY   WALTER   P.    PHILLIPS. 

Read  to  the  Association  of  Railway  Telegraph  Superin- 
tendents at  their  annual  meeting,  held  at  Buffalo,  N.  Y., 
Tune  19,  1902. 

Up  to  the  present  time  the  automatic  systems  of  telegraphy 
have  belonged  to  that  class  of  inventions  in  which  more 
money  was  invested  than  has  ever  been  taken  out.  There 
are  those,  of  course,  who  will  contend  that  the  Wheatstone 
system  has  certain  advantages,  but  when  everything  is 
summed  up  and  a  balance  is  struck,  it  is  doubtful,  as  I  view 
the  matter,  whether  the  introduction  of  that  exquisite  sys- 
tem has  led  to  any  real  progress,  as  far  as  American  teleg- 
raph}- is  concerned.  A  great  deal  has  been  claimed  for  this 
system  in  former  years,  in  England,  but  recent  reports  show 
that  it  has  lost  ground  there,  of  late,  while  in  the  United 
States  it  cuts  no  important  figure. 

But  whatever  may  be  said  against  the  Wheatstone  system 
as  a  factor  of  value  in  these  high  pressure  days  of  instan- 
taneous communication  by  telephone  as  well  as  by  telegraph, 
the  fact  remains  that  it  is  far  ahead  of  the  many  other 
automatic  systems  which  have  come  into  competition  with  it 
during  the  past  twenty-five  years.  For  that  reason  a  brief 
description  of  it  may  be  of  interest: 

The  apparatus  consists  of  a  device  called  a  perforator,  a 
transmitter  of  most  ingenious  construction,  and  an  ink 
recorder.  It  is  the  mission  of  the  perforator  to  make  a  series 
of  dots  in  horizontal  lines,  of  the  transmitter  to  so  distribute 
these  dots  into  the  line  as  to  transform  them  into  the  dots 
and  dashes  comprising  the  telegraph  alphabet;  and  of  the 
inking  mechanism  to  record  them  in  a  perfect  manner,  easily 
read  and  transcribed  by  the  copyist  at  the  receiving  end  of 
the  line.  The  perforator  consists  of  a  set  of  five  metal 
tubes,  or  punches,  encased  in  a  box  within  which  is  placed 
the  mechanism   by  which  the  punches  are  operated.     This 

207 


perforator,  like  everything  connected  with  the  Wheatstone 
System,  works  perfectly.  It  has  three  keys  which  are  de- 
pressed by  the  operator,  who  usually  uses  for  this  purpose 
rubber-tipped  mallets — one  in  each  hand.  Sometimes  per- 
forators are  supplied  with  a  pneumatic  arrangement  render- 
ing it  unnecessary  for  the  operator  to  more  than  touch  the. 
keys,  which  action  opens  a  valve  connected  with  air  tubes 
and  a  piston  influenced  by  the  air  pressure  perforates  the 
paper  instead  of  its  being  done  by  main  strength,  as  is  the 
case  when  struck  by  the  mallets.  Besides  the  two  horizontal 
lines  of  dots  which  pass  through  the  transforming  mechan- 
ism by  which  they  are  changed  to  dots  and  dashes,  there  is 
a  third  line  of  fine  dots — about  120  to  the  foot.  These  dots 
are  placed  between  the  other  two  and  are  used  as  a  means 
of  feeding  the  perforated  tape  through  the  transmitter, 
which  not  only  handles  it  in  a  marvelous  manner,  but  by 
another  ingenious  contrivance  it  sends  "  reversals,"  thus 
clearing  the  line  of  the  static  charge  by  a  constant  alterna- 
tion of  a  current  from  the  opposing  poles  of  the  battery. 
The  Wheatstone  recorder  does  not  differ  essentially  from 
other  inking  mechanisms,  but  it  is  more  elaborate,  more 
accurate,  and  in  every  way  superior  to  everything  in  the 
same  line  that  has  ever  been  produced.  There  may  be  coun- 
tries where  the  telegraphing  public  is  willing  to  have  its 
messages  delayed  more  or  less,  but  in  the  United  States 
people  will  not  submit  to  it.  In  other  countries  the  public 
may  not  know  what  goes  on  inside  the  sacred  precincts  of 
the  telegraph  operating  rooms,  but  in  this  broad  land  of 
freedom,  every  man  who  does  much  telegraphing  makes  it 
his  business  to  know  all  about  the  modus  operandi  of  hand- 
ling telegrams,  and  there  are  but  very  few  of  them  to-day 
who  do  not  know  by  its  ear-marks  whether  a  message 
reaches  him  by  the  Morse  system  or  the  Wheatstone.  The 
first  is  well  understood  to  be  a  method  synonymous  with 
the  greatest  possible  alacrity  and  accuracy,  while  the  latter 
is  viewed  askance  and  accused  of  being  slow  and  incorrect. 
That  there  is  an  initial  delay  in  perforating  the  slips  is  un- 
deniable and  many  more  errors  are  made  in  transcribing 
the  tape  by  eye  than  in  receiving  the  words  by  sound.  All 
of  this   means   a   slow  service,   and   is   so   well   understood 

208 


outside  of  the  telegraph  offices  as  well  as  inside  of  them, 
that  cases  are  known  where  the  falling  off  in  the  business  of 
a  company  using  the  Wheatstone  and  the  corresponding  in- 
crease in  the  business  of  a  company  which  operated  the 
Morse  System  was  so  great,  that  the  former  had  to  be 
permanently  abandoned  and  the  Morse  System  restored  in 
order  to  regain  the  business  which  had  gone  over  to  the 
enemy. 

With  the  Wheatstone  only  a  half  success,  inventors  have 
not  been  lacking  to  bring  forward  one  automatic  system 
after  another,  each  and  every  one  of  which  was  inferior  to  the 
Wheatstone,  and  invariably  for  the  reason  that  they  were 
very  much  faster  and  less  rational  systems  and  their  opera- 
tion contemplated  the  use  of  chemically  prepared  paper  at 
the  receiving  end  of  the  line.  There  have  been  no  end  of 
these  systems,  with  their  wet  paper  and  other  objectionable 
features,  and  for  the  exploitation  of  several  of  them  inde- 
pendent companies  were  formed,  all  of  which  went  to  the 
wall  long  ago.  If  you  walk  along  Broadway,  you  will  see 
here  and  there  a  window  filled  with  what  appears  to  be 
diamonds.  The  shopkeepers  call  them  Brazilian  pebbles, 
Peruvian  crystals,  and  any  other  name  that  comes  handy, 
and  but  for  their  prices,  which,  to  use  a  hackneyed  phrase, 
place  these  blazing  gems  within  the  reach  of  all,  a  superficial 
observer  might  mistake  them  for  the  genuine  article.  But 
when  you  take  any  one  of  these  stones  to  a  practical  jeweler 
and  ask  him  what  it  is,  he  scarcely  takes  it  from  your  hand, 
and  certainly  gives  it  no  careful  scrutiny.  He  disposes  of  it 
with  the  utterance  of  one  word—"  glass  "—and  gives  it  no 
further  thought.  And  so  with  the  long  list  of  extremely 
high  speed  telegraph  systems;  they  are  as  glass  compared 
with  the  real  gem  when  we  put  them  in  the  balance  with  the 
Wheatstone.  And  since  not  one  of  them  is  in  use  in  the 
whole  world  to-day,  as  far  as  I  can  ascertain,  it  is  scarcely 
worth  while  to  mention  them  by  name. 

Within  very  recent  years  the  automatic  telegraph  in  its 
original  form  has  practically  been  discarded  in  favor  of  the 
primitive  Morse,  which  is  by  common  consent  the  simplest 
and  fastest  system  in  the  world.  An  attempt  has  been  made 
to   hasten   this   system   by   devices   known    as   the    Phillips- 

309 


Morse  Automatic  Telegraph.  This  is  a  very  unpretentious 
affair,  using  the  Morse  Key  for  the  preparation  of  an  em- 
bossed tape  which,  without  the  slightest  delay,  is  passed 
through  a  transmitter  and  over  the  line  at  a  high  rate  of 
speed.  The  signals  are  received,  at  the  remote  station,  on 
a  recording  apparatus  which  furnishes  an  embossed  slip 
from  which,  when  passed  through  a  reproducer,  the  words 
as  originally  written  by  the  sending  operator  are  reproduced 
on  a  sounder  and  taken  down  with  a  pen  or  a  typewriter  by 
sound.  I  quote  from  an  article  taken  from  the  New  York 
Sun,  which  I  did  not  write  or  inspire,  so  it  may  be  accepted 
as  wholly  disinterested,  although  I  chance  to  be  the  sponsor 
for  the  system  which  the  Sun  describes. 

"  What  Phillips's  Morse  Automatic  Telegraph  will  do  is  to 
double  or  treble  the  number  of  words  that  can  be  sent  over 
a  single  wire,  and  this  without  requiring  that  the  operators 
learn  anything  beyond  that  which  the  present  Morse  opera- 
tors know  now.  This  result  is  accomplished  by  the  addition 
to  each  office  of  a  set  of  very  simple  instruments.  When 
there  is  no  need  of  hurrying  matter  forward  over  the  wires 
the  rapid  system  can  be  cut  out  of  use  by  changing  a  plug, 
and  the  wires  can  be  used  in  the  ordinary  way — sending 
messages  directly  by  the  key.  The  system  is  one  which  is 
of  value  principally  to  the  telegraph  companies  themselves 
and  to  the  users  of  leased  wires,  but  the  public  would  often 
find  a  direct  benefit  from  its  adoption  through  getting  mes- 
sages promptly,  which  are  now  often  delayed  when  there 
is  trouble  with  the  wires  and  their  capacity  is  reduced  below 
the  normal. 

"  In  this  system  the  messages  are  recorded  in  raised  tele- 
graphic characters  on  a  strip  of  paper,  and  this  strip  being 
run  through  a  proper  machine  the  characters  are  repeated 
by  sound  at  the  other  end  of  the  wire,  and  the  operator, 
reading  them  by  ear,  takes  them  upon  a  typewriter  or  by 
hand.  The  transcribing  operator  can  vary  the  speed  of  the 
tape  as  it  goes  through  the  machine  to  suit  himself,  can  stop 
it  at  any  point,  and  can  pull  it  back  if  he  wants  it  repeated. 
It  is  asserted  that  the  greater  number  of  mistakes  that  occur 
in  the  Wheatstone  system  are  in  the  reading  and  transcrib- 
ing, and  that  these  are  done  away  with  in  the  new  system, 

210 


because  the  ear  is  more  accurate  than  the  eye,  and  also 
faster.  These  claims  seemed  all  to  be  proved  by  the  tests 
made  yesterday.  An  article  in  the  Sun  was  chosen  for  the 
test.  This  was  handed  to  a  Morse  operator,  and  while  he 
sent  it  the  operator,  who  was  afterward  to  transcribe  it, 
left  the  room.  The  sending  operator  worked  at  the  ordinary 
key,  just  as  he  would  in  sending  a  message  over  the  wire  in 
the  present  Morse  system.  The  message,  however,  instead 
of  going  over  the  main  wire,  was  sent  only  over  a  local 
office  wire.  It  was  received  in  a  machine  which  was,  to  all 
intents  and  purposes,  like  the  registering  machine  which 
every  operator  used  forty  years  ago,  before  men  had  learned 
to  read  by  sound.  The  dots  and  dashes  were  reproduced 
on  a  strip  of  paper,  each  being  raised  above  the  surface  of 
the  paper  by  a  point  which  pressed  that  part  of  the  paper 
into  a  groove  in  a  wheel  which  the  paper  passed  over.  In- 
stead of  producing  a  single  line  of  these  impressions,  there 
were  three  points  which  worked  side  by  side  and  left  three 
sets  of  duplicate  impressions.  The  duplication  is  merely  to 
insure  accuracy.  The  message  was  telegraphed  in  this  part 
of  the  process  at  the  ordinary  rate  of  speed. 

"  Now  came  the  second  process — the  transmission  over 
the  main  wire.  The  transmitting  instrument  and  the  record- 
ing instrument,  at  opposite  ends  of  the  wire,  were  set  going 
at  a  speed  three  times  as  great  as  that  of  the  hand  operator. 
The  strip  of  paper  with  the  message  imprinted  on  it  was 
started  through  the  transmitter,  and  the  recorder  went  rat- 
tling away  at  a  rate  which  no  man  could  read,  but  every 
impression  was  afterward  found  to  be  an  exact  duplicate  of 
those  in  the  strip  going  through  the  transmitter.  When 
this  process  was  completed  the  paper  from  the  recorder  was 
brought  over  to  the  transmitter,  and  the  latter  machine  was 
slowed  down  again  to  a  speed  equal  to  that  of  ordinary 
telegraphing.  The  transmitter  was  now  assumed  to  be  only 
an  office  machine  run  upon  an  office  circuit  and  entirely 
separate  from  the  line  wire,  as  would  be  the  case  in  the 
third  process — that  of  taking  the  message  from  the  trans- 
mitted copy  and  turning  it  into  ordinary  writing.  A  type- 
writer who  could  read  telegraphy  by  sound  sat  in  front  of 
his  machine  and  as  soon  as  the  strip  was  started  through 

211 


the  transmitter  he  began  to  print  out  the  message.  When 
he  had  finished,  the  typewritten  copy  was  compared  with  the 
original  in  the  Sun  and  found  to  be  exactly  correct. 

"  In  practise,  the  manner  in  which  the  system  would  be 
used  is  this:  Since  the  transmitter  is  able  to  send  three 
times  as  many  messages  in  a  given  time  as  a  single  operator 
can  send  or  receive,  there  would  be  three  operators  in  each 
office  to  each  wire.  In  the  sending  office  these  operators 
would  be  kept  busy  making  the  tape  copies  of  the  messages 
by  ticking  them  off  on  office  recorders.  As  fast  as  their 
messages  were  ready  they  would  be  run  through  the  trans- 
mitter, which  would  reproduce  them  at  the  triple  speed  at 
the  other  end  of  the  wire.  There  the  three  other  operators 
would  each  take  a  part  of  the  messages  and  transcribe  them. 
There  is  absolutely  no  loss  of  time." 

Mr.  William  B.  Vansize,  in  a  paper  presented  at  the  150th 
meeting  of  the  American  Institute  of  Electrical  Engineers, 
in  January,  1900,  said:  "What  telegraph  officials  really 
need  is  the  simplicity  of  the  Morse  System  combined  with 
increased  speed  of  transmission  and  economy  of  time  be- 
tween the  transmitting  customer  and  his  addressed  corre- 
spondent. Up  to  the  present  time  nothing  has  surpassed 
the  Morse  for  this  purpose."  And  it  is  extremely  doubtful 
if  anything  ever  will.  I  believe,  however,  that  the  Phillips- 
Morse  Automatic  Telegraph  can  handle  business  as  quickly 
as  the  Morse,  and  that  it  will  economize  time  on  the  wire. 
Not  that  it  will  handle  millions  of  words  in  no  time,  like 
the  systems  that  have  been  regularly  brought  forward,  and 
which  promptly  slipped  from  the  experimental  stage  to  the 
limbo  of  unutilized  things,  but  it  will  achieve  in  its  field  the 
triumph  of  making  two,  if  not  three  blades  of  grass  grow 
where  only  one  grew  before.  And  that  is  something,  whereas 
the  attempts  of  those  who  aimed  to  revolutionize  the  origi- 
nal methods  have  ended  in  absolutely  nothing. 

I  have  a  very  wholesome  respect  for  the  man  who  attempts 
something  within  the  range  of  reason,  and  such  a  man  is 
Donald  Murray.  He  has  entered  a  field  that  is  most  allur- 
ing. It  was  not  very  long  after  the  invention  of  the  Morse 
telegraph  that  inventors  began  striving  to  achieve  a  tele- 
graph that  would  deliver  its  messages  in  Roman  characters. 

212 


Royal  E.  House  invented  a  printing  telegraph  away  back  in 
the  fifties;  Hughes  invented  one  not  so  good,  and  afterward 
George  M.  Phelps  combined  the  two  and  produced  a  really 
beautiful  machine  which  came  to  be  known  as  the  Phelps 
Motor.  Edison  interested  himself  in  the  stock  ticker,  and 
as  far  as  short  distance  printing  telegraph  went,  we  had 
made  progress  twenty  years  ago.  But  what  was  needed 
was  an  automatic  page  printer  that  would  work  on  long 
circuits,  and  Mr.  Murray  seems  to  have  come  nearer  to  at- 
taining this  ideal  than  any  one  else.  The  Murray  system 
involves  the  use  of  a  perforated  slip  which  is  prepared  on  a 
machine  which  to-  all  intents  and  purposes  is  a  typewriter. 
This  perforated  slip  is  passed  into  the  line  at  a  moderately 
high  rate  of  speed,  and  the  pulsations  caused  by  it  produce  a 
perforated  slip  at  the  remote  station  which,  when  applied  to 
a  specially  arranged  typewriter,  causes  it  to  print  in  Roman 
letters  that  which  was  originally  perforated  at  the  sending 
station.  There  are  some  natural  obstacles  to  be  overcome 
before  this  system  can  be  made  a  great  and  enduring  suc- 
cess, but  it  is  full  of  promise. 


213 


TELEGRAPH  TALK  AND  TALKERS. 

HUMAN    CHARACTER    AND    EMOTIONS    AN    OLD 
TELEGRAPHER  READS  ON  THE  WIRE. 


BY    L.    C.    HALL. 

Cross  the  threshold  of  the  operating  department  of  a 
metropolitan  telegraph  office,  and  you  pass  into  a  wonder- 
land where  much  is  done  that  might  well  excite  astonish- 
ment if  the  vernacular  in  which  it  is  transacted  were  set  down 
in  comprehensible  phrase.  Here  men  talk  of  megohms  and 
microfarads  and  milliamperes;  you  carelessly  touch  a  bit  of 
brass  and  are  stung  by  an  invisible  imp;  you  see  a  man 
gazing  fixedly  at  an  impertinent  little  instrument,  toying 
idly  the  while  at  a  rubber  button,  and  the  brass  instrument 
having  clattered  back,  you  see  him  laugh  idiotically  for  no 
reason  whatever. 

For  "telegraphese"  is  a  living,  palpitating  language.  It 
is  a  curious  kind  of  Volapuk,  a  universal  tongue,  spoken 
through  the  finger  tips  and  in  most  cases  read  by  ear. 

In  its  written  form  telegraphese,  or  "  Morse,"  as  it  is 
called  in  the  vernacular,  is  rarely  seen.  Yet  as  a  vehicle  of 
expression  it  is,  to  the  initiated,  as  harmonious,  subtle,  and 
fascinating  as  the  language  of  music  itself. 

Nothing  could  be  simpler  than  its  alphabet  of  dots  and 
dashes.  Yet  it  has  come  to  pass  that  out  of  the  manner  of 
rendering  this  simple  code  has  been  evolved  a  means  of 
communicating  thought  and  feeling  rivaling  in  flexibility  and 
scope  the  human  voice. 

A  great  hall  was  filled  one  night  with  people — mostly 
telegraphers  and  their  friends.  On  the  stage  were  a  dozen 
men,  a  few  tables  upon  which  were  sets  of  shining  telegraph 
instruments,  and  a  number  of  typewriting  machines  of  dif- 
ferent patterns.  The  occasion  was  a  "  fast -sending  tourna- 
ment," held  to  establish  records  in  rapid  transmission. 

By  courtesy  of  McClure's  Magazine.    Copyrighted,  iqo2,  by  the  S.  S. 
McClure  Co 

2 1 5 


One  by  one  the  contestants  stepped  to  the  test  table,  and 
manipulated  the  key.  There  was  a  tense  stillness  through- 
out the  hall,  broken  when  "  time  "  was  called  by  a  trill  of 
metallic  pulsations  read  by  most  of  the  audience  as  from 
a  printed  page.  The  text  of  the  matter  is  of  no  concern, 
an  excerpt  from  a  great  speech,  a  page  of  blank  verse,  or 
only  the  "  conditions  "  found  at  the  top  of  a  telegraph  form. 
Speed  and  accuracy  alone  are  vital.  Forty,  forty-five,  fifty 
words  a  minute  are  rattled  off — seven  hundred  and  fifty 
motions  of  the  wrist — and  still  the  limit  is  not  reached.  The 
contestants  show  the  same  evidences  of  strain  that  charac- 
terize the  most  strenuous  physical  contest — the  dilating 
nostril,  the  quick  or  suspended  breathing,  the  starting  eye. 

Presently  a  fair-haired  young  man  takes  the  chair,  self- 
confidence  and  reserve  force  in  every  gesture.  Away  he 
goes,  and  his  transmission  is  as  swift  and  pure  as  a  moun- 
tain stream.  '  To  guard  against  mistakes  and  delays,  the 
sender  of  a  message  should  order  it  repeated  back."  The 
audience,  enthralled,  forgets  the  speed,  and  hearkens  only 
to  the  beauty  of  the  sending.  On  and  on  fly  the  dots  and 
dashes,  and  though  it  is  clear  that  his  pace  is  not  up  to  that 
set  by  the  leaders,  nevertheless  there  is  a  finish — an  inde- 
finable quality  of  perfection — in  the  performance  that  at  the 
end  brings  the  multitude  to  its  feet  in  a  spontaneous  burst  of 
applause;  such  an  outburst  as  might  have  greeted  a  great 
piece  of  oratory  or  acting. 

A  telegrapher's  Morse,  then,  is  as  distinctive  as  his  face, 
his  tones,  or  his  handwriting;  and  as  difficult  to  counterfeit 
as  his  voice  or  writing.  Of  this  individual  quality  of  tele- 
graphese, the  old  war  telegraphers  tell  many  stories.  A 
Confederate,  for  example,  encounters  on  the  march  a  line 
of  wire  which  he  suspects  is  being  used  by  the  enemy.  He 
taps  the  wire,  "  cuts  in  "  his  instruments,  and  listens.  His 
surmise  is  correct;  he  "grounds  off"  one  or  the  other  end, 
and,  trying  to  disguise  his  style  of  "  sending,"  makes  in- 
quiries calculated  to  develop  important  information.  But  the 
Southern  accent  is  recognized  in  his  Morse  by  the  distant 
manipulator,  who,  indeed,  may  have  been  a  co-worker  in  the 
days  "before  the  war."  So  the  intruder  gets  only  a  good- 
humored  chaffing.      '  The  trick  won't  work,  Jim,"   says   the 

216 


Federal  operator.  "  Let's  shake  for  old  times'  sake,  and 
then  you  '  git  '  out  of  this." 

In  the  wire-world  a  telegrapher  is  known  by  his  "  sign  " — 
it  may  be  the  letter  X  or  Q  or  &.  Now  there  is  certainly 
nothing  in  a  mere  letter  to  warm  up  to,  or  the  reverse;  and 
yet,  after  a  day  or  two  of  this  wire  acquaintance  with  a  man 
whom  one  has  never  seen,  and  whose  name  one  does  not 
know — a  conversation,  mind  you,  not  of  your  own,  but  of 
exchanging  other  persons'  telegrams — one  gets  an  idea  of 
the  other's  personality  as  distinct  as  if  there  had  been 
personal  intercourse;  one  feels  friendly  toward  him,  or 
dislikes  him.  And  one's  own  feeling  toward  him  is  probably 
shared  by  every  one  who  has  had  this  wire  contact  with  him. 
X  or  Q  or  &  may  thus  stand  for  a  distinct  personality  in  the 
telegraph  world,  in  the  same  sense  that  the  name  Thackeray 
or  Longfellow  stands  for  an  individuality  in  the  literary  world. 

Expressed  in  print  a  laugh  is  a  bald  '*  ha  ha!"  that  re- 
quires other  words  to  describe  its  quality.  In  wire-talk  the 
same  form  is  used,  but  the  manner  of  rendering  it  imparts 
quality  to  the  laughter.  In  dot-and-dash  converse,  as  in 
speech,  "ha!  ha!  ha!  "  may  give  an  impression  of  mirthless- 
ness,  of  mild  amusement,  or  of  convulsion.  The  double  "  i," 
again,  in  wire  parlance,  has  a  wide  range  of  meaning  accord- 
ing to  its  rendition.  A  few  double  "  i's  "  are  used  as  a  pre- 
lude to  a  conversation,  as  well  as  to  break  the  abruptness 
in  ending  it.  They  are  also  made  to  express  doubt  or 
acquiescence;  and  in  any  hesitation  for  a  word  or  phrase 
are  used  to  preserve  the  continuity  of  a  divided  sentence. 
When  an  order  is  given  in  Morse  over  the  wire,  the  opera- 
tor's acknowledgment  is  a  ringing  "i — i!"  which  has  the 
same  significance  as  a  sailor's  "  aye,  aye,  sir!  " 

The  man  would  be  but  a  poor  observer  of  little  tilings 
who,  after  "working  a  wire  "  with  a  stranger  at  "  the  other 
end  "  for  a  week,  could  not  give  a  correct  idea  of  his  distant 
vis-a-vis'  disposition  and  character.  And  it  would  be 
quite  possible  for  an  imaginative  operator  to  build  up  a 
fairly  accurate  mental  image  of  him — whether  be  ate  with 
his  knife,  or  wore  his  hat  cocked  on  the  side  of  bis  head,  or 
talked  loud  in  public  places. 

Sonic  years  ago.  in  a  Southern  office,  I  was  assigned  to 

217 


a  "  circuit  "  which  had  its  terminus  at  the  national  capital. 
My  fellow  operator  at  the  other  end  of  the  wire  used  the 
letters  "C  G"  for  his  wire-signature.  C  G's  Morse  was  so 
clear,  even,  and  rhythmic,  his  dots  and  dashes  so  per- 
fectly timed  and  accurately  spaced,  that  I  immediately 
conceived  a  cordial  liking  for  him.  In  a  short  time  this 
liking,  to  which  he  heartily  responded,  ripened  into  a  strong 
and  sincere  attachment.  My  friend's  distinct  though  delicate 
wire-touch  made  working  with  him  exceedingly  restful.  In- 
deed, every  day  for  months  I  "  received  "  from  him  without 
perceptible  fatigue,  or  the  necessity  of  "  breaking."  Al- 
most from  the  beginning  of  our  acquaintanceship  I  fancied 
that  I  should  know  him  at  sight  if  I  chanced  to  meet  him. 
I  pictured  him  a  tall,  frail  man,  with  the  refined  and 
patient  manner  of  one  who  has  suffered  much,  his  features 
delicately  molded,  his  eyes  of  the  kind  that  kindle  quickly 
when  lighted  by  a  smile,  and  his  mouth  ready  to  apply  the 
torch  whenever  his  sense  of  humor  prompted.  I  fancied 
that  I  should  know  his  dress — the  old-fashioned  collar;  the 
small  white  tie;  the  thin,  rather  long,  black  sack  coat. 

Some  months  after  our  first  meeting  by  wire  I  was 
called  to  Washington,  and  while  there  I  visited  the  big 
operating  room  of  the  main  office,  in  order  to  greet  the 
many  friends  of  other  days.  As  I  made  my  way  about  I 
kept  a  sharp  lookout  for  my  old  wire  friend.  I  did  not 
ask  to  have  him  pointed  out,  because  I  wished  to  see  if  it 
were  possible  to  identify  him  by  my  mental  photograph. 
Presently  I  spied  him,  just  as  I  had  pictured  him.  I  stood 
beside  him  for  a  moment;  then,  touching  his  shoulder, 
I  held  out  my  hand. 

"  How  do  you  do,  C  G?  I  am  very  glad  to  see  you  and 
to  have  the  pleasure  of  shaking  your  hand." 

Though  he  was  a  much  older  man  than  I  there  was  no 
lack  of  respect  in  my  words,  for  it  is  not  uncommon  for  one 
telegrapher  to  address  another  by  his  "  sign." 

C  G  rose  with  a  quiet  dignity,  and  taking  my  hand,  looked 
down  at  me  over  his  glasses,  his  eyes  beaming. 

"  It's  H,  is  it  not?  I  am  very  glad  to  meet  you,  my  son!  " 
And  then  we  fell  to  chatting,  face  to  face,  as  we  had  so 
often  done  by  wire. 

218 


I  never  met  him  again  in  the  flesh.  A  few  months  after 
my  Washington  visit  I  missed  him  from  my  wire.  In  re- 
sponse to  an  inquiry  I  was  told  that  my  dear  old  friend 
had  heen  seriously  injured  in  a  cablecar  accident,  and  that, 
being  alone  in  the  world,  he  had  been  taken  to  a  hospital 
fur  treatment.  There  he  lingered  for  a  while,  at  times  half- 
conscious;  then  his  gentle  spirit  went  out. 

I  made  another  trip  to  Washington,  to  attend  his  funeral; 
afterward  making  a  visit  to  the  hospital  to  hear  from  the 
head  nurse  the  story  of  his  injury  and  death. 

"  Late  in  the  evening,"  said  the  good  woman  as  our  inter- 
view was  ending,  "  I  was  called  into  his  room.  He  was 
rapidly  failing,  and  was  talking  as  if  in  a  dream,  two  fingers 
of  his  right  hand  tapping  the  bed  clothes  as  if  he  were  send- 
ing a  message.  I  did  not  understand  the  purport,  but  per- 
haps you  will.  '  You  say  you  can't  read  me?  '  he  would 
say;  '  then  let  H  come  to  the  key.  He  can  read  and  under- 
stand me.  Let  H  come  there,  please.'  Now  and  again  his 
fingers  would  cease  moving,  as  if  he  were  waiting  for  the 
right  person  to  answer.  Then  he  would  go  on  once  more: 
'  Dear  me,  dear  me,  this  will  never  do!  I  want  to  talk  with 
H.  I  have  an  important  message  for  him.  Please  tell  him 
to  hurry.'  Then  would  follow  another  pause,  during  which 
he  would  murmur  to  himself  regretfully.  But  at  last  he 
suddenly  assumed  the  manner  of  one  listening  intently; 
then,  his  face  breaking  into  a  smile,  he  cried,  his  fingers 
keeping  time  with  his  words:  '  Is  that  you,  H?  I'm  so 
glad  you've  come!  I  have  a  message  for  you.'  And  so,  his 
fingers  tapping  out  an  unspoken  message,  his  kindly  spirit 
took  its  flight." 

The  nurse's  eyes  were  brimming,  and  I  gulped  vainly  at  a 
bun])  in  my  thoat.      After  a  moment's  silence  she  continued: 

"  But   there   was   one   feature    of    Mr.    G -'s   dying   talk 

that  particularly  impressed  me.  While  he  tapped  out  his 
messages  he  spoke  in  a  tense  half-whisper,  like  one  trying 
to  project  his  voice  through  space.  Between  times,  how- 
ever, in  communing  with  himself,  he  spoke  in  his  natural 
tones.  But  I  noticed  that  he  glided  from  one  tone  to  the 
oilier,  quite  as  a  linguist  would  in  conversing  with  two  per- 
sons of  different  nationalities." 

219 


The  head  nurse  in  a  hospital  had  stumbled  upon  a  dis- 
covery which  up  to  this  time  remains  a  sealed  book  to  the 
linguistic  student. 

A  woman's  Morse  is  as  feminine  as  her  voice  or  her  hand- 
writing. I  have  often  put  to  the  test  my  ability  to  distin- 
guish between  the  Morse  of  a  man  and  that  of  a  woman, 
and  only  once  have  I  been  deceived. 

On  this  same  Washington  "  circuit  "  I  one  day  encoun- 
tered a  sender  at  the  other  end,  a  stranger,  who  for  hours 
"  roasted  "  me  as  I  seldom  had  been  in  my  telegraphic  ex- 
perience. The  dots  and  dashes  poured  from  the  sounder 
in  a  bewildering  torrent,  and  I  had  the  hardest  kind  of 
work  to  keep  up  in  copying.  With  all  its  fearful  swiftness 
the  Morse  was  clean-clipped  and  musical,  though  it  had  a 
harsh,  staccato  ring  which  indicated  a  lack  of  sentiment  and 
feeling  in  the  transmitter.  From  this,  and  from  a  certain 
dash  and  swagger,  I  gathered,  before  the  day  was  out,  a 
pretty  distinct  impression  of  the  personality  of  the  trans- 
mitter. I  conceived  him  to  be  of  a  well-kept,  aggressively 
clean  appearance,  with  a  shining  red  complexion  and  close- 
cropped  hair;  one,  in  brief,  whose  whole  manner  and  make- 
up bespoke  the  self-satisfied  sport.  That  he  wore  a  diamond 
in  his  loudly  striped  shirt-front  I  considered  extremely  likely, 
and  that  he  carried  a  toothpick  between  his  lips  was  mor- 
ally certain. 

Next  day  I  took  occasion  to  make  some  inquiries  of  my 
fellow-operator  at  Washington. 

"  Oh,  you  mean  T  Y,"  he  said,  laughing.  '  Yes,  for  a 
girl,  she  is  a  fly  sender." 

It  was  mortifying  to  find  that  I  had  mistaken  the  sex 
of  the  sender,  but  I  was  consoled  when  I  met  the  young 
woman.  The  high  coloring  was  there,  and  the  self-satisfied 
air;  so  also  were  the  masculine  tie,  the  man's  vest,  and  the 
striped  shirt-front.  Nor  were  the  diamond  pin  and  the 
toothpick  wanting.  When  she  introduced  herself  by  her 
sign,  called  me  "  Culley,"  and  said  I  was  "  a  crack-a-jack 
receiver,"  I  was  convinced  that  it  was  nature,  and  not  I, 
that  had  made  the  mistake  as  to  her  sex. 

How  powerfully  the  imagination  may  be  stimulated  by 
a  story  told  in  dots  and  dashes  is  illustrated  by  an  episode 

220 


of  the  Charleston  earthquake.  At  the  moment  of  the  final 
shock  every  wire  connecting  Charleston  with  the  outside 
world  was  instantly  "  lost."  And  as  no  other  tidings  could 
be  had  from  the  doomed  city,  it  was  as  if  in  an  instant  it 
had  been  swept  from  the  face  of  the  earth.  And  for  many 
hours  Charleston  remained  literally  dead  to  the  world. 

The  next  morning,  before  the  average  citizen  had  time 
to  collect  his  wits,  the  telegraph  people  had  started  out  gangs 
of  linemen  to  get  the  wires  in  working  order.  Operators 
in  the  principal  offices  within  a  radius  of  several  hundred 
miles  were  set  to  calling  "  C  N."  For  a  long  time  there 
was  no  response;  but  at  last,  on  the  wire  which  I  had  in 
charge,  a  slight  answering  signal  was  felt,  rather  than 
heard— faint  and  flickering,  like  the  first  sign  of  returning 
life.  From  that  moment  my  watch  was,  if  possible,  more 
diligent.  For  an  hour  or  more  I  called.  "  adjusted,"  and 
used  every  effort  to  revive  the  feeble  pulse.  I  could  fancy 
myself  working  desperately  to  resuscitate  a  half-drowned 
man.  Again  I  felt  the  flickering  signal,  and  then  once  more 
all  signs  of  life  faded  away.  Finally,  as  the  wires  were 
gradually  cleared  of  debris,  the  current  began  to  strengthen, 
and  then  came  the  answering  "i — i!  C  N  " — weak  and  un- 
steady, but  still  sufficiently  plain  to  be  made  out.  To  me  it 
sounded  like  a  voice  from  the  tomb,  and  I  shouted  aloud 
the  tidings  that  Charleston  was  still  in  existence.  Quickly 
the  sounder  was  surrounded  by  a  throng  of  excited  teleg- 
raphers. The  Morse  was  broken  and  unsteady  at  first.  Then 
the  current  grew  stronger — the  patient  was  growing  better 
— and  for  a  long  time  we  listened  to  the  labored  clicking, 
until  at  last  the  worst  was  known.  And  at  the  end  of  the 
recital  a  great  sigh  went  out  from  the  hearts  of  all  of  us, 
as  if  literally  in  our  presence  a  long-buried  city  had  been 
exhumed. 

In  the  reporting  of  races  or  games  by  wire  the  Morse 
imparts  a  singular  vitality  to  the  description.  The  listening 
crowd  hears  the  description  repeated  by  mouth  from  the 
sounder,  and  they  grow  enthusiastic  or  depressed.  But  it 
is  tlie  showing  of  the  teams  that  moves  them;  there  is  noth- 
ing in  the  sound  of  the  words  to  stir  them.  Not  so  with  the 
Morse  reader,  particularly  if  the  distant    reporter  be  clever 

•.-.'1 


with  his  telegraphese.  The  short,  sharp  dots  and  dashes 
impart  a  most  thrilling  quality  to  his  announcements — a 
quality  that  stirs  the  hlood  and  makes  the  heart  of  the  re- 
ceiver thump  with  excitement.  '  They're  off  !  "  in  print  is 
cold  and  empty  compared  to  its  counterpart  in  Morse  ut- 
tered at  a  critical  moment.  Some  indescribable  quality  in 
the  sound  reflects  the  sender's  interest  and  feeling  as  no 
man,  not  an  elocutionist  or  an  actor,  would  reflect  them 
in  voice  or  gesture. 

Telegraphic  anecdotes  there  are  in  plenty.  The  difficulty 
is  so  to  set  them  before  the  reader  as  to  give  him  an  idea 
of  their  telegraphic  flavor.  Here  is  one  with  the  flavor 
partly  obscured. 

To  begin  with,  it  is  necessary  to  say  that  the  letter  E  in 
Morse  is  a  single  dot,  while  an  O  is  two  dots  slightly 
spaced.  It  should  be  plain,  therefore,  that  an  O  imperfectly 
spaced,  or  misinterpreted  in  receiving,  makes  the  same  im- 
pression upon  the  ear  as  the  double  E.  Upon  this  rests  the 
point  of  the  story.  I  was  transmitting  a  message  addressed 
to  "  Gen.  Fitz  Lee,  Washington";  an  old  comrade  of  Lee's 
was  sending  him  a  congratulatory  message.  As  I  went 
ahead  "  To  Gen.  Fitz  Lee,  Washington,"  the  receiver 
stopped  me.  "  Is  that  to  Gen.  Fitz  Lo  ?  "  he  queried.  "  No," 
I  answered  impatiently,  "  it  is  to  Gen.  Fitz  Lee."  "  Bk!  bk!  " 
(break!  break!)  said  the  receiver;  "  Gen.  Fitz  Lee  or  Gen. 
Fitz  Lo — it's  infernally  stupid  of  your  people  to  take  in  a 
message  addressed  to  a  Chinese  laundryman  in  this  town 
without  giving  a  street  number." 

The  fellow's  evident  earnestness  and  his  naivete,  as  evi- 
denced in  his  Morse,  made  the  ejaculation  deliciously  funny. 
The  story  reached  the  general,  and  I  afterward  heard  him 
tell  it  at  his  own  expense.  But  in  the  telling  the  telegraphic 
flavor  was  lost. 

Like  any  other  language,  Morse  has  its  patois — a  cor- 
rupted version  of  the  purer  speech  used  by  the  inexperienced 
or  by  those  to  whom  nature  has  denied  the  finer  percep- 
tions of  timing  and  spacing.  This  patois  might  be  called 
"  hog-Morse."  It  would  be  quite  impossible  to  give  even 
a  rude  idea  of  the  humor  contained — for  the  expert — in 
some    of   the   corruptions    of     which     hog-Morse     is    guilty. 


These  consist  largely  in  closely  joining  elements  which 
ought  to  be  spaced,  or  in  separating  others  that  are  meant 
tc  be  close-coupled. 

In  the  patois  of  the  wires  "pot"  means  "hot,"  "foot" 
is  rendered  "fool,"  "  U.  S.  Navy"  is  "us  nasty,"  "home" 
is  changed  to  "  hog,"  and  so  on.  If,  for  example,  while 
receiving  a  telegram,  a  user  of  the  patois  should  mi>^  a 
word  and  say  to  you  "  6naz  fimme  q,"  the  expert  would 
know  that  he  meant  "  Please  fill  me  in."  But  there  is  no 
difficulty  about  the  interpretation  of  the  patois  provided  the 
receiver  be  experienced  and  always  on  the  alert.  When, 
however,  the  mind  wanders  in  receiving,  there  is  always 
danger  that  the  hand  will  record  exactly  what  the  ear  dic- 
tates. On  one  occasion,  at  Christmas  time,  a  hilarious 
citizen  of  Rome,  New  York,  telegraphed  a  friend  at  a  dis- 
tance a  message  which  reached  its  destination  reading.  "  Cog 
hog  to  rog  and  wemm  pave  a  bumy  tig."  It  looked  to  the 
man  addressed  like  Choctaw,  and  of  course  was  not  under- 
stood. Upon  being  repeated  it  reads.  "  Come  home  to 
Rome,  and  we'll  have  a  bully  time."  Another  case  of  con- 
fusion wrought  by  hog-Morse  was  that  of  the  Richmond, 
Virginia,  commission  firm,  who  were  requested  by  wire  to 
quote  the  price  on  a  carload  of  "  undressed  slaves."  The 
member  of  the  firm  who  receipted  for  the  telegram  being 
something  of  a  wag,  wired  back:  "  No  trade  in  naked  nig- 
gers «6ince  Emancipation  Proclamation."  The  original  mes- 
sage had  been  transmitted  by  senders  of  hog-Morse,  called 
technically  "  hams,"  and  the  receivers  had  absent-mindedly 
recorded  the  words  as  they  had  really  sounded.  What  the 
inquirer  wanted,  of  course,  was  a  quotation  on  a  carload 
of  staves  in  the  rough. 

The  mere  sound  of  the  styles  of  some  transmitters  is 
irresistibly  comic.  One  of  these  natural  humorists  may 
be  transmitting  nothing  more  than  a  string  of  figures,  and 
still  make  you  chuckle  at  the  grotesqueness  of  his  Morse. 
It  is  an  everyday  thing  to  hear  senders  characterized  as 
Miss  Nancys,  rattle-brains,  swell-heads,  or  cranks,  or 
"jays,"  simply  because  the  sound  of  their  dots  and  dashes 
suggests  the  epithets. 

When  a  telegram  is  being  read  by  sound,  the  receiver  is 

223 


not  conscious  of  the  dots  and  dashes  that  make  up  the 
sentences.  The  impression  upon  the  ear  is  similar  to  that 
produced  by  spoken  words.  Indeed,  if  an  experienced  teleg- 
rapher were  asked  suddenly  what  a  certain  letter  is  in  dots 
and  dashes,  the  chances  are  that  he  would  hesitate  before 
being  able  to  answer.  In  view  of  this  fact  I  should  say  that 
thinking  in"  telegraphese  is  not  possible,  and  in  this  point 
of  comparison  with  a  spoken  tongue  the  Morse  is  deficient. 
Curiously  enough,  however,  as  an  aid  to  memory  in  the 
spelling  of  words  the  telegraphese  is  useful.  If  a  telegra- 
pher should  be  in  doubt  as  to  the  orthography  of  a  word — 
whether  it  were  spelt  with  an  ie  or  ei,  for  example — he 
would  only  have  to  sound  it  on  an  instrument  or  click  it 
out  on  his  teeth  to  dispel  at  once  any  uncertainty. 

Among  the  other  interesting  facts  is  that,  in  Morse,  fam- 
ily resemblance  is  shown  as  often  as  in  face  and  manner. 
Furthermore,  just  as  two  persons  of  kindred  temperaments 
— man  and  wife,  say — who  have  been  long  associated,  are 
said  gradually  to  grow  into  a  physical  resemblance  to  each 
other — so,  in  a  like  manner,  two  telegraphers  who  have 
worked  a  wire  together  for  years  insensibly  mold  their 
Morse  each  after  the  other's,  until  the  resemblance  between 
them  is  readily  perceptible. 

If  anything  else  were  needed  to  complete  the  parallel  be- 
tween the  telegraphese  and  a  recognized  vehicle  of  "expres- 
sion, I  might  add  that  the  users  of  the  language  of  dots  and 
dashes  are  animated  by  a  spirit  as  clannish  as  that  of  the 
Highland  Scots.  Bring  two  strangers  together;  let  each 
know. that  the  other  is  acquainted  with  the  wire  tongue,  and 
in  five  minutes'  time  the  pair  will  be  swapping  telegraph 
yarns  as  if  they  had  known  each  other  for  years.  Country 
operators,  when  they  get  leave  to  come  to  town,  are  drawn 
irresistibly  to  the  city  telegraph  office.  However  strange 
the  city  may  be,  in  the  central  commercial  office  or  the  rail- 
road dispatcher's  den  they  are  sure  to  find  others  who  speak 
their  language,  and  with  whom  they  may  fraternize  and  feel 
at  home.  Nor  is  this  clannishness  felt  in  personal  inter- 
course alone;  it  applies  to  those  who,  in  widely  separated 
cities,  are  brought  in  daily  touch  by  a  wire  used  jointly  by 
all.     In  idle  intervals,   on  an  Associated  Press  circuit,   for 

224 


example — a  wire  touching  at  a  dozen  or  more  cities — dis- 
tance is  lost  sight  of,  ami  all  the  features  of  personal  inter- 
course are  distinctly  present.  Stories  are  told,  opinions  ex- 
changed, and  laughs  enjoyed,  just  as  if  the  participants  were 
sitting  together  at  a  club.  They  grow  to  know  each  other's 
habits,  moods,  and  foibles,  their  likes  and  dislikes;  and 
when  there  is  a  break  in  the  circle  through  the  death  of  a 
member,  his  absence  is  felt  just  as  in  personal  association. 


The     Phillips    Code 


A  THOROUGHLY  TESTED  METHOD  OF  SHORT  HAND, 
ARRANGED  FOR  TELEGRAPHIC  PURPOSES,  AND 
CONTEMPLATING  THE  RAPID  TRANS- 
MISSION   OF    PRESS   REPORTS  j 
ALSO  INTENDED  TO  BE 
USED   AS    AN 


EASILY    ACQUIRED     METHOD 

FOR 

General  Newspaper  and  Court  Reporting 

BY 

WALTER    P.     PHILLIPS 

General  Manager  of  the    United  Press  from   18S2  to   1SQ7 


Entered  According  to  Act  of  Congress 

by 

WALTER  P.  PHILLIPS 
1879 


A  few  pages  of  the  Phillips  Code  are  given  here- 
with. The  books  can  be  had  of  J.  B.  Taltavall,  of 
The  Telegraph  Age,  253  Broadway,  New  York, 
U.  S.  A.  The  code,  as  given  herewith,  was  printed 
in  our  previous  edition  issued  in  1900  and  is  not  now 
absolutely  correct.  For  many  years  its  revision 
has  been  constantly  going  on  and  some  departures 
from  the  old  text  have  been  made  during  the  last 
seventeen  months.  The  books,  however,  as  sup- 
plied by  Mr.  Taltavall,  are  always  up  to  date.  The 
insertion  of  a  few  pages  of  the  code  herewith  is  to 
show  what  it  is  like.  It  is  in  general  use  on  all 
press  wires  throughout  the  United  States  and  Can- 
ada and  is  used  by  many  newspaper  reporters  in 
taking  speeches  in  cases  in  which  a  liberal  synop- 
sis is  wanted  instead  of  a  verbatim  report.  Very 
few  men  are  reported  verbatim  in  these  busy  days 
in  any  publication  excepting  the  Congressional 
Record. 

WALTER  P.  PHILLIPS 

Bridgeport,   Conn.,   March   1,   1902. 


•.".".1 


THE    PHILLIPS   CODE 


INTRODUCTORY 

The  Morse  alphabet,  which  is  employed  to  represent  the  sounds  used  in 
steno-telegraphy,  is  composed  entirely  of  linear  characters  formed  of 
dots  and  dashes,  and  by  combinations  of  the  two.  The  letters  c,  o,  r,  y 
and  ?.,  and  the  symbol  "&"  are  composed  of  dots  and  spaces.  There  are 
no  spaces  in  any  of  the  letters  composed  of  dashes.  The  alphabet  is  as 
follows: 

A--  J S--- 

B K T  — 

C L—  U 

D M V 

E-  N  — -  W 

F O-    -  X 

G P Y 

H Q Z--- 

I--  R &-    --- 

The  figures  are  as  follows: 

i 5 9 

2 6 o 

3 7 

4 8 

The  punctuation  marks  used  as  a  part  of  this  system  are  as  follows: 

Comma — Dot,  dash,  dot,  dash. 

Interrogation  point — Dash,  two  dots,  dash,  dot. 

Capital  letter — Cx. 

Shilling  mark — Ut. 

Pounds  sterling — Px. 

Exclamation  point — Three  dashes,  dot. 

Colon — Ko. 

Dollar   mark — Sx. 

Colon  dash — Kx. 

Parenthesis — Pn  stands  for  first  and  Py  for  the  second  parenthesis  mark. 

Pence — D. 

Quotation  marks — Qn  stands  for  first  and  Qj   for  the  second  quotation 

mark. 
Quotation  marks  within  a  quotation — Qx. 
Brackets — Bx. 
Dash— Dx. 
Hyphen — II  x. 
Semicolon — Si. 

Period — Two  dots,  two  dashes,  two  dots. 
Paragraph   mark — Four  dashes. 

Underline — Ux  stands  for  first  and  Uj  for  the  second  underline  signal. 
Colon  followed  by  a  quotation—  Kq, 

23] 


Fractions  are  sent  by  inserting  the  letter  e  between  the  numerator 
and  the  denominator,  thus:     Three-sixteenths — 3  e  16. 

Owing  to  the  fact  that  three  ciphers  when  quickly  transmitted  bear  a 
striking  resemblance  to  a  figure  5,  it  will  always  be  better  to  use  tnd  for 
thousands  and  myn  for  million  when  thousands  or  millions  are  expressed 
after  the  first,  second  or  third  figures  by  ciphers  exclusively,  thus: 
10,000 — 10  tnd;  248,000,000 — 248  myns. 

Hnd  may  also  be  used  to  advantage  sometimes  to  express  hundreds, 
thus:     400 — 4  hnd;  500,000 — 5  hnd  tnd;  300,000,000 — 3  hnd  myn. 

Decimals  should  be  sent  by  inserting  the  word  "dot,"  thus:  0.34 — 
0  dot  34;  89.92 — 89  dot  92. 

When  an  omission  occurs  in  the  copy  and  the  fact  is  shown  by  the 
presence  of  asterisks,  the  letter  x  several  times  repeated  will  indicate  that 
asterisks  are  to  be  inserted  in  the  copy  to  be  sent  out,  thus:  And  this 
has  been  one  of  the  results.  ******  ******  \yho  shall 
account  for  such  corruption? — And  this  has  been  one  of  the  results. 
x    x    x    x    x    x     Who  shall,  etc. 

In  sending  poetry  or  one  or  more  lines  of  verse  a  paragraph  mark 
( )  should  be  used  at  the  end  of  each  line,  thus: 

The  gentleman  on  the  other  side,  as  it  seems  to  me,  takes  a  super- 
ficial view  of  what  has  been  developed,  and  manifests  a  disposition  either 
to  defend  these  obvious  irregularities  or  content  himself  with  what 
appears  on  the  surface.  Unless  he  corrects  his  methods,  I  fancy  the 
poet's  words, 

Qn  The  primrose  on  the  river's  brim 

A  yellow  primrose  was  to  him 

And  it  was  nothing  more    Qj     ■ — 

will  be  peculiarly  applicable  to  my  credulous  colleague  in  the  near  future, 
and  he  will  discover  that  he  has  missed  an  opportunity  to  render  a  great 
service  to  the  cause  of  common  honesty. 

Beginners,  both  senders  and  receivers,  should  commit  all  of  the  fore- 
going to  memory  before  attempting  to  send  the  code. 

Operators  essaying  to  learn  to  send  the  accompanying  system  of  codi- 
fication will  achieve  that  object  with  comparative  ease  by  beginning,  and 
continuing,  methodically.  They  should  first  commit  to  memory  the 
meaning  conveyed  by  the  single  letters,  as  follows: 

B— Be.  K— Out  of  the.  T— The. 

C— See.  M— More.  U— You. 

D — In  the,  or  pence.       N — Not.  V — Of  which. 

F— Of  the.  O— Of.  W— With. 

G — From  the.  P— Per.  X — In  which. 

H— Has.  Q— On  the.  Y— Year. 

j — By  which.  R — Are.  Z — From  which. 

Also,  a  figure  4  for  "where,"  a  figure  5  for  "that  the,"  and  a  figure  7 
for  "that  is."  These  figures  are  expressed,  as  will  be  seen  further  on, 
thus:  Fr — four;  fv — five;  sv — seven.  They  should  be  so  sent  whenever 
they  appear  singly.     Occurring  in  groups,  they  may  be  sent  in  the  usual 

manner.  . 

The  next  step  for  the  beginner  is  to  learn  the  meaning  conveyed  by  the 
two-letter  contractions,  among  the  more  important  of  which  are  the 
following: 

232 


Ac — And  company.  Ec- 

Ad — Adopted.  Ed 

Ag — Agent.  Ef- 

Ao — At  once.  Eh 

Ap — Appropriate.  Ej — 

Aq — Acquaint.  El — 

Ar — Answer.  Em 

Au — Author.  En- 

Av — Average.  Ep- 

Bc — Because.  Eq- 

Bd— Board.  Er— 

Bf— Before.  Ev 

Bg— Being.  Ey 

Bh— Both.  Fa 

Bk— Break.  Fb 

Bl— Bill.  Fc— 

Bn— Been.  Fd- 

Bt—  But.  Fh- 

Bv— Believe.  Fi- 

B\v— Be  with.  Fj- 

Bx— Bracket  [].  Fk- 

Bz — Business.  Fl- 

Ca — Came.  Fo- 

Cb— Celebrate.  Fq- 

Cd— Could.  Fs- 

Cf—  Chief.  Ft- 

Cg — Seeing.  Fw 
Cj — Coroner's  jury.  Fx- 

Ck — Check.  Ga- 

Cl— Call.  Gb- 

Co — County.  Gc- 

Cq — Correct.  Gd- 

Cr — Care.  Gf- 

Cs — Case.  Gg 

Ct — Connect.  Gi- 

Cu — Current.  Gj- 

Cv — Cover.  Gk 

Cx — Capital  letter.  Gm 

Db — Debate.  Gn 

Dd— Did.  Gq- 

Df— Differ.  Gr- 

Dg — Doing.  Gt- 

Di— Direct.  Gx 

Dl— Deliver.  Gz- 

Dm — Demand.  Ha 

Dp— Depart.  Hb 

Ds — Discuss.  He- 

Dt— Do  not.  Uf- 

Du— Duty.  Hg 

Dv— Divide.  Hh 

Dx— Dash.  Hi 

1)/— Does.  Ilk 

Ea — Each.  II" 


-Ecclesiastic. 

-Editor. 

Effect. 

-Either. 

Eject. 

Elect. 

—Embarrass. 

-Enthusiasm. 

-Epoch. 
Equal. 
Error. 

Ever. 
Every. 

Fail. 

Of  the  bill. 

Fiscal. 

-Find. 

-Forth. 

Fire. 

Found. 

-Fluctuate. 

Feel. 

-For. 

-Frequent. 

-First. 

For  the. 

-Follow. 

-Fort. 

-Gave. 

-Great  Britain. 

-Grace. 

-Good. 

-Gulf. 

-Going. 

■Gigantic. 

-Grand  jury. 

-Greek. 

— Gentlemen. 

-Gone. 

-Geology. 

•Ground. 

Great. 

-Great    excitement. 

-Gazette. 

-He  also. 
i — Has  been. 

-Habeas  corpus. 
Half. 

-Having. 

-Has  had. 
High. 

-Hunk. 

i— Hold. 


Hp — Hope. 

Ht— Has  the. 

Hu — House. 

Hv— Have. 

Hx — Hyphen. 

la — Iowa. 

Ic — In  connection. 

Id — Introduce. 

Ig — Indignant. 

Ih— It  has. 

Ij — Injure. 

II— Illustrate. 

Im — Immediately. 

Io — In  order. 

Ip — Improve. 

Iq — Inquire. 

Ir — Irregular. 

Iv — In  view. 

Iw — It  was. 

Ix— It  is. 

Jd — Judicious. 

Jf— Justify. 

Jg— Judge. 

Jp — Japan. 

Ju— Jury. 

Kb — Contribute. 

Kc — Concentrate. 

Kf — Confuse. 

Kg— King. 

Ki— Kill. 

Kl— Collect. 

Km — Communicate. 

Kn — Know. 

Kp — Keep. 

Kr — Color. 

Ks — Conserve. 

Kt — Contain. 

Ku — Continue. 

Kv — Convert. 

Kw — Know. 

La — Louisiana. 

Ld — London. 

Lf— Life. 

Lg— Long. 

Lk — Like. 

Lm — Low  middling. 

Lp — Liverpool. 

Lq — Liquor. 

Lr — Lower. 

Lt — Lieutenant. 

Lv — Leave. 

Md— Made. 

Mf— Manufacture. 


233 


Mg — Manage. 

Mh— Much. 

Mk— Make. 

Ml— Mail. 

Mo— Month. 

Mu — Murder. 

Mw — Meanwhile. 

Na — Name. 

Nb— Not  be. 

Nc — North  Carolina. 

Ne — New  England. 

Nf— Notify. 

Ng — Negotiate. 

Nh — New  Hampshire. 

Ni— Night. 

Nj — New  Jersey. 

Nl— Natural. 

Nm — Nominate. 

No — No,  and  New  Or 

leans,  La. 
Nr — Near. 
Nt— North. 
Nv — Never. 
Nx — Next. 
Ny — New  York. 
Ob— Obtain. 
Oc— O'clock. 
Od— Order. 
Og — Organize. 
Oh— Ohio. 
Oj— Object. 
Om— Omit. 
Op — Opportunity. 
Oq — Occupy. 
Os — Oppose. 
Ow — On  which. 
Oz — Ounce. 
Pb— Probable. 
Pc — Per  cent. 
Pd— Paid. 
Pe — Principle. 
Pf— Prefer. 
Pg — Progress. 
Ph — Perhaps. 
Pj — Prejudice. 
Pk — Particular. 
PI— Political. 
Pm — Postmaster. 
Po — Post-office. 
Pp — Postpone. 
Pq — Possess. 
Pr — President. 
Ps — Pass. 


Pt— Present. 
Pu— Public. 
Pv — Privilege. 
Pw — Power. 
Px — Pounds  sterling. 
Qa — Qualify. 
Qc — Concur. 
Qm — Quartermaster. 
Qp — On  the  part  of. 
Qr — Quarter. 
Qu— Quiet. 
Ra — Raise. 
Rb— Rob. 
Re — Receive. 
Rd— Read. 
Rf— Refer. 
Rg— Regular. 
Rh— Reach. 
.  Ri_Rhode  Island. 
Rj — Reject. 
Rk — Recover. 
Rl— Real. 
Rm — Remain. 
Rn — Reason. 
Rp — Report. 
Rq — Request. 
Rr — Railroad. 
Rs — Resolve. 
Rt — Are  the. 
Ru — Are  you. 
Rv — Remove. 
Rw— Are  with. 
Rx — Recommend. 
Ry — Railway. 
Rz— Result. 
Sa — Senate. 
Sb — Subsequent. 
Sc — South   Carolina. 
Sd — Should. 
Sf — Satisfy. 
Sg— Signify. 
Sh — Such. 
Si — Subject. 
Sk — Success. 
SI— Sail. 
Sm — Some. 
Sn — Soon. 
Sp — Ship. 
Sq — Separate. 
Sr — Secure. 
Ss — Steamship. 
St— Street. 
Su — Sure. 


Sv — Seven. 
Sx — Dollar  mark. 
Tb— The  bill. 
Td— Treasury     Depart- 
ment. 
Tf— The  following. 
Tg— Thing. 
Th— Those. 
Ti— Time. 
Tj— The  jury. 
Tk— Take. 
Tm— Them. 
Tn— Then. 
Tp— Transport. 
Tq— The  question. 
Tr— There. 
Ts— This. 
Tt— That. 
Tw — To-morrow. 
Tx— This  is. 
Ty— They. 
Tz— These. 
Uf — Unfortunate. 
Ug — Unguarded. 
Uk — Understand. 
Ul— Usual. 
Urn — Unanimous. 
Un— Until. 
Ur — Your. 
Us— United  States. 
Va — Virginia. 
Vb— Valuable. 
Vc — Vindicate. 
Vk— Victor. 
Vm — Vehement. 
Vo— Vote. 
Vp — Vituperate. 
Vr — Virtue. 
Vu — View. 
Vx — Violate. 
Vy — Very. 
Wa— Way. 
Wb— Will  be. 
Wc — Welcome. 
Wd— Would. 
Wg — Wrong. 
Wh— Which. 
Wi— Will. 
Wk— Week. 
Wl— Well. 
Wm — William. 
Wn— When. 
Wo— Who. 


234 


Wp— Weep. 

Wq — Warrant. 

Wr— Were. 

Ws— Was. 

Wt— What. 

Wu — Western  Union. 

Wv—  Waive. 

Ww— With  which. 

Wx— Wait. 

Wy— Why. 

Xb — Exorbitant. 


Xc — Excite. 
Xd — Exceed. 
Xg — Legislate. 
Xh — Exhaust. 
Xj — Explain. 
Xk — Execute. 
XI — Excel. 
Xm — Extreme. 
Xn — Constitution . 
Xo — Exonerate. 
Xp — Expense. 


Xr — Exercise. 
Xs— Exist. 
Xt— Extent. 
Ya — Yesterday. 
Za — Sea. 
Zc — Section. 
Zd— Said. 
Zm — Seem. 
Zn — Seen. 


Having  familiarized  himself  with  the  foregoing,  the  operator  will  then 
find  it  to  his  advantage  to  apply  himself  to  memorizing  the  remainder 
of  the  two-letter,  and  as  many  as  possible  of  the  three-letter,  contrac- 
tions. Among  the  latter,  it  will  be  observed,  the  principal  words  in  daily 
use  (and  which  are  given  in  some  cases  in  their  briefest  form  in  the  two- 
letter  contractions  above)  are  traced  in  most  of  their  numerous  termina- 
tions. Thus,  for  example,  we  have  ak  for  "acknowledge,"  akd  for 
"acknowledged,"  akg  for  "acknowledging,"  etc.  The  principle  illustrated 
by  this  word  will  be  found  to  underlie  the  whole  system,  deviation  from 
the  rule  only  occurring  when  the  peculiarities  of  the  Morse  alphabet  will 
not  permit  of  following  the  law,  or  where  the  addition  of  a,  d,  g  or  m 
would  make  a  stem  spell  some  word  which  would  fit  in,  without  disturb- 
ing the  context,  in  the  place  where  the  word  intended  to  be  conveyed 
ought  to  go.  Wherever  the  author  has  foreseen,  or  experience  in  work 
ing  the  system  has  shown,  that  a  strict  adherence  to  the  rule  would 
involve  the  receiver  in  perplexity  he  has  departed  therefrom,  but  in  no 
other  cases. 

In  the  very  beginning  of  their  attempts  to  use  the  code,  sending 
operators  should  first  master  the  single  letters  and  as  many  of  the  double 
and  three-letter  ones  as  possible,  and  then  proceed  to  send,  dropping 
out  of  the  long  words  as  many  of  the  vowels  as  they  can  conveniently 
omit  without  getting  confused  and  demoralized.  Perfect  confidence  and 
ease  will  come  with  practice.  In  the  meantime  the  operator  should  apply 
himself  to  learning  the  contractions  under  the  various  letters — a  few  at 
a  time — using  them  as  much  as  possible  as  he  proceeds  with  his  practice. 
A  few  weeks'  experience  will  serve  to  make  the  whole  plan  of  working 
very  plain  and  clear,  if  a  moderate  amount  of  thought  and  attention  is 
given  to  the  foregoing  hints  and  to  memorizing  a  few  of  the  contractions 
every  day. 

The  sending  operator  should  always  say  "bk"  when,  from  any  cause,  he 
breaks  down  in  the  middle  of  a  word,  or  interrupts  himself.  This  signal 
is  easily  recognized,  and  is  of  the  greatest  possible  assistance  to  the 
receiving  operator. 


Abb — Abbreviate. 
Abbd — Abbreviated. 
Abbg — Abbreviating. 
Abbn — Abbreviation. 
Abe — Absence. 
Abd — Aboard. 
Abe — Owing  to. 
Abg — Abiding. 


Abh— Abolish. 
Abhd— Abolished. 
Abhg — Abolishing. 
Abhn — Abolition. 
Abi — Abide. 
Abj — Abject. 
Abjy — Abjectly. 
Abl— Able. 


Abm — Abominate. 
Abmd — Abominated. 
Abmg — Abominating. 
Abml — Abominable. 
A 1  mm — Abomination. 
Abn — Abandi  in. 
Abnd — Abandoned. 
Abng — Abandoning. 


23£ 


Abnm — Abandonment. 
Abp — Abrupt. 
Abpns — Abruptness. 
Abpy — Abruptly. 
Abr — And  brother. 
Abs — Absent. 
Absd — Absented. 
Abse — Absentee. 
Absg — Absenting. 
Abt— About. 
Abty — Ability. 
Abu — Abundant. 
Abuc — Abundance. 
Abuy— Abundantly. 
Abv — Above. 
Aby — Albany. 
Ac — And  Company. 
Aca — Academy. 
Acal — Academical. 
Acan — Academician. 
Ace — Account. 
Accd — Accounted. 
Accg — Accounting. 
Acct — Accountant. 
Acd — Accord. 
Acdd — Accorded. 
Acg — According. 
Acgy — Accordingly. 
Ach — Achieve. 
Achd — Achieved. 
Achg — Achieving. 
Achm — Achievement. 
Acm — Accumulate. 
Acmg — Accumulating. 
Acn — Accumulation. 
Aco — Accommodate. 
Acod — Accommodated. 
Acog — Accommodating. 
Aeon — Accommodation. 
Acp — Accept. 
Acpc — Acceptance. 
Acpd — Accepted. 
Acpg — Accepting. 
Acph — Accomplish. 
Acphd — Accomplished. 
Acphg — Accomplishing. 
Acphm — Accomplish- 
ment. 
Acq — Acquire. 
Acqd — Acquired. 
Acqg — Acquiring. 
Acqm — Acquirement. 
Acr — Accurate. 


Acrly — Accurately. 
Acstm — Accustom. 
Acstmd — Accustomed. 
Actl— Actual. 
Actly— Actually. 
Actn — Action. 
Actu — Actuate. 
Actud — Actuated. 
Actug — Actuating. 
Acu — Accuse. 
Acud — Accused. 
Acug — Accusing. 
Acup — Acted  upon. 
Acur — Accuser. 
Acv — Active. 
Acvly — Actively. 
Acvty — Activity. 
Acy — Accuracy. 
Ad— Adopted. 
Adc — Advice. 
Adcs — Advices. 
Adg — Advantage. 
Adgs — Advantages. 
Adgv — Advantageous. 
Adh— Adhere. 
Adhc — Adherence. 
Adhd— Adhered. 
Adhg — Adhering. 
Adht — Adherent. 
Adj — Adjourn. 
Adjd — Adjourned. 
Adjg — Adjourning. 
Adjm — Adjournment. 
Adl— Admiral. 
Adm — Administrate. 
Admn — Administration. 
Adn — Addition. 
Adnl— Additional. 
Adp — Adopt. 
Adpn — Adoption. 
Adq — Adequate. 
Adqy — Adequately. 
Adr — Administer. 
Adrd — Administered. 
Adrg — Administering. 
Adrr — Administrator. 
Adrx — Administratrix. 
Ads — Address. 
Adsd — Addressed. 
Adsg — Addressing. 
Adt — Amendment. 
Adts — Amendments. 
Adu— Adieu. 


Adv — Advertise. 
Advc — Advance. 
Advcd — Advanced. 
Advcg — Advancing. 
Advcm — Advancement. 
Advd — Advertised. 
Advg — Advertising. 
Advm — Advertisement. 
Af— After. 
Afa — Affair. 
Afc— Affect. 
Afcd — Affected. 
Afcg — Affecting. 
Afcn — Affection. 
Afcny — Affectionately. 
Afcs — Affects. 
Afd— Afford. 
Afdd— Afforded. 
Afg — Affording. 
Afj— Affidavit. 
Afjs — Affidavits. 
Afl— Afflict. 
And— Afflicted. 
Aflg— Afflicting. 
Afln— Affliction. 
Afls— Afflicts. 
Aim — Affirm. 
Afmd — Affirmed. 
Afmg — Affirming. 
Afn — Afternoon. 
Afo — Aforesaid. 
Afr — Affray. 
Afv — Affirmative. 
Afw — Afterward. 
Afx— Affix. 
Afxd— Affixed. 
Afxg — Affixing. 
Ag — Agent. 
Aga — Against. 
Age — Agriculture. 
Agd — Agreed. 
Agg— Aggregate. 
Aggd — Aggregated. 
Aggg— Aggregating. 
Aggn — Aggregation. 
Agi — Agitate. 
Agid — Agitated. 
Agig— Agitating. 
Agin — Agitation. 
Agl — Agricultural. 
Agist — Agriculturist. 
Agm — Agreement. 
Agms — Agreements. 


~'36 


Agn — Again. 
Agr — Agree. 
Agrg— Agreeing. 
Ags — Agents. 
Agt — Agreed  to. 
Agu — Argue. 
Agud — Argued. 
Agug— Arguing. 
Agum — Argument. 
Agv — Aggressive. 
Agy — Agency. 
Ahd — Ahead. 
Ahr — Add  House  Regu- 
lar. 
Aj — Adjust. 
Aja — Adjacent. 
Ajd — Adjusted. 
Ajg — Adjusting. 
Ajm — Adjustment. 
Ajs — Adjusts. 
Ajt — Adjutant. 
Ajts — Adjutants. 
Ak — Acknowledge. 
Akc — Access. 
Akcy — Accessory. 
Akd — Acknowledged. 
Akg — Acknowledging. 
Akm — Acknowledgment 
Aks — Acknowledges. 
Akt — Accident. 
Aktl — Accidental. 
Aktly — Accidently. 
Akts — Accidents. 
Al— All. 
Ala — Alabama. 
Ale — Alcohol. 
Aid — Aldermen. 
Alg — Along. 
Ali— Ally. 
Alid— Allied. 
Alis — Allies. 
Alj — Allege. 
Aljd — Alleged. 
Alj  g— Alleging. 
Aljn — Allegation. 
Aljnc — Allegiance. 
Alk— Alike. 
Aim — Alarm. 
Almd — Alarmed. 
Almg — Alarming. 
A  In — Altercation. 
Alnc — Alliance. 
A  Ins — Altercations. 


Air — Already. 
Alt — Alternate. 
Altd — Alternated. 
Altg — Alternating. 
Alty — Alternately. 
Alu — Allude. 
Alud— Alluded. 
Alug — Alluding. 
Alun — Allusion. 
Alw — Always. 
A  m  a — A  merican. 
Amb — Ambition. 
Ambs — Ambitions. 
Amd— Amend. 
Amdd — Amended. 
A  m  d  g — A  mending. 
A  m  d  s — Amends. 
Aindy — Amendatory. 
Amg — Among. 
Amgst — Amongst. 
Ami — Amicable. 
Amily — Amicably. 
Amn — American. 
Amns — Americans. 
Amp — Ample. 
Ampy — Amply. 
Amr — Ameer. 
Amt — Amount. 
A  m  t  d — Amounted. 
Amtg — Amounting. 
Amts — Amounts. 
Amu — Amuse. 
Amud — Amused. 
Amug — Amusing. 
Amum — Amusement. 
Amx — Ambitious. 
Amxy — Ambitiously. 
Amz — Amaze. 
Amzd — Amazed. 
Amzg — Amazing. 
Amzm — Amazement. 
Amzy — Amazingly. 
Anc— Announce. 
Ancd — Announced. 
Ancg — Announcing. 
Ancm — Announcement. 
Ancs — Announces. 
Ang — Antagonist. 
Angm — Antagonism. 
Angs — Antagonists. 
Angz — Antagonize. 
Angzd — Antag(  inized. 
Anl — Annual. 


Anly — Annually. 
Anm — Animal. 
Anms — Animals. 
Anr — Another. 
Ant — Anticipate. 
Antd — Anticipated. 
A  n  t  g — A  nticipating. 
Antn — Anticipation. 
Ami — Anew. 
Any — Anniversary. 
Anx — Anxious. 
Anxty — Anxiety. 
An  xy — .Anxiously. 
Ao — At  once. 
Ap — Appropriate. 
Apa — Apart. 
Apam — Apartment. 
Anams — Apartments. 
Ape — On  account  of. 
Apd — Appropriated. 
Apg — Appropriating. 
Aph — Approach. 
Aphd — Approached. 
Aphg — Approaching. 
Aphs — Approaches. 
Api — Aniece. 
Apl — Appeal. 
Apld — -Appealed. 
Aplg — Appealing. 
Apis — Appeals. 
Aplt — Aopellant. 
Apm — Appointment. 
Apms — Appointments. 
Apn — Appropriation. 
Apns — Appropriations. 
App — Appoint. 
Appd — Appointed. 
Appg — Appointing. 
Apr — Appear. 
Aprc — Appearance. 
Aprd — Appeared. 
Aprg — Appearing. 
Aprl — April. 
Aps — Appropriates. 
Apv — Approve. 
Apvd — Approved. 
Apvg — Approving. 
Apvl — Approval. 
Apx — Approximate. 
\p\il-  Approximated. 
Apxg — Approximating. 
Apxn-  A.ppn  iximation. 
Apxs—  Approximates. 


237 


Apxy — Approximately. 
Apy — Appropriately. 
Aq — Acquaint. 
Aqc — Acquaintance. 
Aqd — Acquainted. 
Aqg — Acquainting  . 
Aqn — Acquisition. 
Aqs — Acquaints. 
A  qt— Acute. 
Aqty — Acutely. 
Aqu — Acquiesce. 
Aquc — Acquiescence. 
Aqud — Acquiesced. 
Aqug — Acquiescing. 
Ar — Answer. 
Ara — Arrange. 
Arad — Arranged. 
Arag — Arranging. 
Aram — Arrangement. 
Arb — Arbitrate. 
Arbd — Arbitrated. 
Arbm — Arbitrament. 
Arbr — Arbitrator. 
Arby — Arbitrarily. 
Ard — Answered. 
Arg — Answering. 
Arn — Arbitration. 
Aro — Arose. 
Arr — Arrest. 
Arrd — Arrested. 
Arrg — Arresting. 
Ars — Answers. 
Arv — Arrive. 
Arvd — Arrived. 
Arvg — Arriving. 
Arvl — Arrival. 
Ary — Arbitrary. 
Arz — Arizona. 
Asb — Absorb. 
Asbd — Absorbed. 
Asbg — Absorbing. 
Asc — Ascertain. 
Ascd — Ascertained. 
Asd — Associated. 
Asf — As  follows. 
Asg — Ascertaining. 
Asi — Assist. 
Asic — Assistance. 
Asid — Assisted. 
Asig — Assisting. 
Asl — Asleep. 
Asm — Assemble. 
Asmd — Assembled. 


Asmg — Assembling. 

Asn — Association. 

Aso — Also. 

Asp — Aspect. 

Asr — Add  Senate  Regu 
lar. 

Ast — Associate. 

Asts — Associates. 

Asu — Assume. 

Asud — Assumed. 

Asug — Assuming. 

Asumn — Assumption. 

Asus — Assumes. 

Asy — Assembly. 

Atb— Attribute. 

Atbd— Attributed. 

Atbg— Attributing. 

Ate — Attendance. 

Atd— Attend. 

Atds— Attends. 

Atg — Attending. 

Atk— Attack. 

Atkd— Attacked. 

Atkg— .Attacking. 

Atks— Attacks. 

Atl—  Atlantic. 

Atm — Attempt. 

Atmd— Attempted. 

Atmg — Attempting. 

Atms — Attempts. 

Atn — Attention. 
Atns — Attentions. 

Atr— Attract. 
Atrd— Attracted. 
Atrg — Attracting. 
Atrn — Attraction. 
Atrs— Attracts. 
Atv — Attractive. 
Aty — Attorney. 
Au— Author. 
Aub — Auburn. 
Auc — Auction. 
Aucnr — Auctioneer. 
Aucs — Auctions. 
Aud — Audience. 
Auds — Audiences. 
Aug — August. 
Auh — Authentic. 
Auhcy — Authenticity. 
Auhd — Authenticated. 
Auhg — Authenticating. 
Auhn — Authentication. 
Auhs — Authenticates. 


Auhy — Authentically. 
Aum — Autumn. 
Aun — Austrian. 
Aup — Auspices. 
-  Aupx — Auspicious. 
Aur — Austria. 
Aut — Adjourned       until 

to-morrow. 
Aux — Auxiliary. 
Auy — Authority. 
Auys — Authorities. 
Auz — Authorize. 
Auzd — Authorized. 
Auzg — Authorizing. 
Auzn — Authorization. 
Auzs — Authorizes. 
Av — Average. 
Avb — Avoidable. 
Avd — Averaged. 
Ave — Avenue. 
Avg — Averaging. 
Avl — Avail. 
Avid — Availed. 
Avlg — Availing. 
Avis — Avails. 
Avn — Aversion. 
Avo — Avoid. 
Avod — Avoided. 
Avog — Avoiding. 
Avos — Avoids. 
Avr — Aver. 
Avrd — Averred. 
Avrg — Averring. 
Avrs— Avers. 
Avs — Averages. 
Avt — Avert. 
Avtd — Averted. 
Avtg — Averting. 
Avts — Averts. 
Avy — Avoidably. 
Aw — At  which. 
Awa — Away. 
Awd — Award. 
Awdd — Awarded. 
Awdg — Awarding. 
Awds — Awards. 
Awf — Awful. 
Awfy — Awfully. 
Awi — Awhile. 
Ax— Ask. 
Axd — Asked. 
Axg — Asking. 
Axn — Annexation. 


238 


Ay — Any.  Ayh — Anyhow.  Ay4 — Anywhere. 

Ayb — Anybody.  Aym — Any  more. 

Ayg — Anything.  Ayo — Ony  other. 

Note. — It  will  be  seen  from  the  foregoing  list  of  contractions,  which 
carry  out  many  words  in  their  various  terminations,  how  the  stems  in 
the  words  which  now  follow  may  be  safely  concluded  in  cases  where  they 
are  not  given  in  all  of  their  variations. 

Before  turning  his  attention  to  the  remainder  of  this  work  I  cannot 
too  strongly  impress  upon  the  operator  the  desirability  of  thoroughly 
mastering  the  single  and  double  letter,  and  as  many  of  the  three-letter 
contractions  as  possible.  This  much  accomplished,  he  will  easily  double 
his  usual  rate  of  speed.  Particular  care  should  be  taken  to  space  properly 
between  words,  especially  when,  as  will  sometimes  happen,  the  matter  in 
hand  runs  along  for  a  line  or  two  almost  entirely  in  single  and  double 
letters 

The  following  exercise  is  written  out  more  fully  than  is  necessary,  in 
order  that  beginners  may  be  able  to  read  it  readily  and  catch  the  spirit 
of  the  scheme  without  undergoing  the  annoyance  of  having  to  hunt 
through  the  books  for  the  definition  of  arbitrary  contractions. 

T  Amn  sprit  as  ix  eld.  h  a  cntemt  fo  ti's  halowg  inflncs.  Inded,  it 
sems  to  bv  tt  ti  cann  halow,  bt  can  ony  dstroy.  N  mny  ys  ago  Lafayette 
Pic  ws  I  f  most  imposg  patricn  qrs  o  N  Y.  T  clmrs  o  Bway  ca  to  it 
ofay  in  a  dremy  raurmr.  Its  length  ws  n  gt,  bt  it  hd  a  lordly  bredth. 
Win  easiest  akc  f  most  busy  purlus,  its  quietud  ws  provrbl.  So  infq  wr 
vhicls  alg  its  pavmt  tt  in  sumr  t  gras  wd  ofn  crop  ot  tr  Ik  fringy  scrolwrk 
nr  t  wl  swept  sidwlk  &  clnly  gutrs.  At  I  end  4  ts  staly  ave  is  crosd  bi 
a  naroer  st  ro  an  imens  chh,  in  rigid  clascl  stile,  w  t  pinted  roof  o  an 
ancent  tmpl  &  imen  gra  flutd  pilars  frmg  its  portico. 

Ts  chh  is  stil  stndg,  bt  nr  it  lums  a  mnstrus  bri  big  tt  1  gle  can  tel  us 
is  a  trd  rate  bdg  hu  4  peo  w  chrs  as  dingy  as  t  windo  panes  ma,  ph.  gan 
facile  admsn.  T  bdg  hu  ws  one  a  fin  pvt  mansn  &  hb  enlrgd  into  its  pt 
dreary  bignes.  Tn.  at  ts  sthn  end,  stud  un  a  vy  shrt  ti  ago  t  gray  old 
grandeur  of  St.  Bartholomew's  4,  fo  nrly  hf  a  cntury,  t  blumg  brids  o  ou 
qn  bst  lams  qn  wr  marid  &  thr  fatrs  &  mothrs  la  in  funl  sta  as  t  ys  rold 
on.  At  t  nthn  end  ws  one  a  spacus  dwlg  hu,  wos  oakn  hal,  w  its  rchly 
mediaeval  carvgs  &  brilnt  windo  o  stained  glas.  mite  wl  hv  srvd  fo  sm 
antiq  abbey  over-sea.  Bt  ts  dlitfl  old  hu  h  dsaprd  &  a  vast  bri  structr  wh 
is  1  o  th  towrg  altars  tt  we  so  ofn  bid  to  cmrc  h  sprung  up  in  its  stead. 
Tr  ws  aso  a  crn  edific  closly  aja  to  ts.  wh  hd  a  ux  porte  cochere  uj  d  rl 
Parisin  stile,  &  Splid  a  dlitfl  tuch  o  fgn  novlty.  Bt  tt,  too,  h  dspard  si 
Ik  t  hu  w  t  charmg  cloistrl  hal,  its  vy  quaintns  ws  its  ruin.  If  ou  bigs 
can  n  alw  hav  t  adg  0  rpsntg  trad,  ty  r  at  leas  dilgnt  in  thr  dvon  to  ugli- 
ncs.  Bt  Lafa  Pic  is  smhw  Lafa  Pic  stil.  Its  trnsmatn  into  clip  lodgmts 
is  gradl,  tho  su.  T  sieg  goes  stedly  on,  bt  t  besgd  hv  n  yet  sucmbd.  Ey 
y  t  hnsm  cariags  tt  rol  up  &  down  its  aves  gro  fuer  &  fuer,  si  ey  y  its 
pavmts  worn  bi  t  fet  o  ded  &  gon  Nikrbokrs  r  m  fqd  bi  shaby  Germns  or 
slatrnly  Italns.  Bt  t  solid  solmnity  f  Astor  Libry  stil  dws  schlrs  &  buk- 
wnrms  win  its  precincts,  tho  t  dgnity  o  posesg  t  Columbia  Law  Schl,  into 
wh  slim,  britc  facd  clegians  wd  once  trup  o  a  mny  h  nw  deprtd  foev.  A 
fu  abods,  hvr,  r  stil  to  b  fj  hr,  w  burnshd  dor  plates  &  t  glimpses  o  rch 
iner  tapstris  tt  pint  twd  wlthfl  prosperity. 

[From  "A  Hopeless  Case,"  by  Edgar  Fazucclt.] 


THE  PHILLIPS  CODE. 

SOME   REMARKABLE     PERFORMANCES  BY  COX 
SPICUOUSLY  CLEVER  MEN— QUICK  WORK  IN 
THE  UNITED  STATES  SENATE  AND  AT  THE 
NATIONAL    CONVENTIONS— ALL      THE 
SUPREME    COURT  JUDGES    DO    NOT 
WRITE  ENGLISH— GEORGE  KEN- 
NAN,     THE    SIBERIAN     TRAV- 
ELER,   IN    AN   ALMOST 
FORGOTTEN  ROLE. 

I  read,  with  great  interest,  a  communication  from  Mr. 
D.  Kimball,  of  Chicago,  in  the  New  York  Sun,  not  long 
ago,  regarding  abbreviations.  I  am  the  author  of  a 
system  of  this  kind,  and  since  it  is  held  that  such  a  sys- 
tem can  have  no  practical  value  in  general  newspaper 
reporting,  I  wish  to  combat  that  idea  if  you  will  permit  me. 
Mr.  Kimball  says: 

*****"  Much   less    can    a    system    of    abbreviations, 
such   as   reporters   use,   however   cleverly   devised,   ever 
come    into    general    use    for    the    ordinary    purposes    of 
writing,   for  the   reason   that  perfect   legibility  of   every 
word  independent   of  every   other   word  is   an   essential 
characteristic  of  such  a  system  of  improved  writing." 
The    spokesman    of   the   Arkansas    Editorial   Association, 
according  to  Texas  Siftings,  observed  on  arriving  in  Austin 
with   his   band   of  journalistic   brethren,    several   years    ago. 
that  they  "had  traveled  far  and  wandered  wide."     My  own 
experience  has  been   similar,  and   I   am   always   finding  that 
things  are  being  done  in  many  fields  of  human  endeavor  of 
which,   up  to  a  certain   time,    I   had  no   knowledge,   and   the 
Phillips  Code,  published  in  [879,  and  which  has  been  in  con- 
stant use   since   then   on  telegraph   wires,  and  as   an   aid   in 
general    reporting    by    the    telegraph    operators    who    have 
gone  into  newspaper  work,  seems  to  constitute  a  system  of 
successful  abbreviations  of  which  Mr.    Kimball   has   not  yet 
heard. 

'.'II 


Out  of  the  many  thousands  of  telegraph  operators  em- 
ployed by  the  Western  Union  and  Postal-Telegraph  cable 
companies  scarcely  any  of  even  ordinary  capacity  can  be 
found  who  does  not  employ  the  Phillips  Code  in  the  trans- 
mission of  press  despatches,  while  it  is  used  by  some  ex- 
perts in  handling  messages  both  social  and  commercial. 
This  has  been  going  on  for  twenty-three  years,  and  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  code  is  considered  so  great  a  desideratum  as 
a  part  of  the  telegraphic  education  that  even  the  tyros  take 
it  up  at  a  very  early  stage  of  their  tutelage.  It  is  related 
that  a  youngster  who  had  barely  mastered  the  Morse 
alphabet,  in  transmitting  a  report  of  a  fire  from  Red  Bank, 
N.  J.,  a  year  or  two.  ago,  said  Dbf,  then  halted,  and  finally 
convulsed  the  New  York  receiving  operator  by  asking,  "Are 
you  on  to  the  Phillips  Code?"  Learning  that  the  receiver 
was,  the  young  man  proceeded  with  renewed  confidence  to 
struggle  through  his  task,  using  more  code  than  the  usual 
sender  employs,  and  winding  up  with  Cbi  as  a  final  flourish. 
Dbf  means  destroyed  by  fire  and  Cbi  means  covered  by 
insurance. 

Regarding  the  use  of  the  Phillips  Code  in  cases  in  which  a 
verbatim  report  is  not  essential,  I  may  say  that  one  of  the 
best  newspaper  reports  of  an  event  that  was  ever  furnished 
to  its  clients  by  the  Associated  Press  was  that  of  the  Star 
route  cases,  in  Washington,  nearly  twenty  years  ago.  That 
trial  was  reported  by  Mr.  E.  M.  Hood,  a  very  young  oper- 
ator, who  had,  however,  made  a  special  study  of  the  code. 
Mr.  Hood,  who  has  long  stood  in  the  front  rank  of  news- 
paper writers  at  the  capital,  used  the  Phillips  Code  exclu- 
sively in  reporting  this  trial,  extended  over  many  weeks,  and 
the  excellence  of  his  work  was  so  marked  that  within  a 
few  weeks  Mr.  Edward  D.  Easton,  now  the  President  of 
the  Columbia  Phonograph  Company,  who  made  the  ver- 
batim report  of  the  Star  route  trial  for  the  government, 
spoke  of  Mr.  Hood's  performance  in  words  of  unstinted 
praise. 

For  several  years  the  decisions  handed  down  by  the  judges 
of  the  United  States  Supreme  Court  were  condensed  and 
done  into  English  by  Mr.  George  Kennan,  who  has  since 
won   renown  by  his  writings  and  lectures  on   the   Russian 

242 


system  of  relegating  to  Siberia,  by  administrative  process, 
such  persons  as  are  regarded  as  being  dangerous  to  the 
safety  of  the  nation.  These  decisions  were  in  the  hand- 
writing of  their  authors,  and  not  all  of  the  judges  had  culti- 
vated the  Spencerian  system  of  penmanship,  while  some 
were  at  war  with  Webster  on  questions  of  orthography,  and 
a  few  others,  if  they  had  ever  heard  of  Quackenboss,  had 
a  contempt,  as  supreme  as  the  bench  from  which  they  ren- 
dered their  decisions,  Tor  any  ideas  he  may  have  tried  to 
inculcate  as  to  rhetoric  and  composition.  Mr.  Kennan  was 
not  permitted  to  take  these  unique  documents  out  of  the 
Supreme  Court  chamber.  So  he  studied  over  them  and 
made  notes  of  what  they  signified  in  their  ultimate  essence. 
These  notes  were  made  in  the  Phillips  Code,  and  from  them, 
every  Monday  evening  while  the  court  was  holding  ses- 
sions, Mr.  Kennan  wrote  marvelously  clear  synopses  of 
these  decisions  for  the  Associated  Press.  At  one  time  and 
another  he  was  complimented  on  his  work  by  every  judge 
on  the  Supreme  Court  bench — among  them  Chief  Justice 
Waite  and  Mr.  Justice  Miller.  Mr.  Kennan  is  again  in 
Washington,  and  is  representing  the  Outlook.  I  will  ven- 
ture the  opinion  that  if  he  has  occasion  to  make  notes  he 
brings  to  his  aid  the  code  which  stood  him  in  such  good 
stead  when  he  was  struggling  with  the  written  opinions  of 
those  venerable  and  honored  gentlemen  who  have  the  last 
sad  say  on  such  disputed  questions  as  float  up  to  this  highest 
of  all  legal  tribunals,  in  America,  from  the  lower  courts  scat- 
tered all  over  this  broad  land  of  freedom  and  of  persistent 
litigation. 

The  late  William  T.  Loper,  during  his  term  of  service 
as  Associated  Press  reporter  of  the  United  States  Senate, 
furnished,  in  penciled  code,  at  the  rate  of  a  thousand 
words  per  hour,  a  sketch  of  the  Senate  proceedings  for 
afternoon  papers.  In  addition  to  this  he  managed  the  basis 
for  a  separate  story  largely  in  Phillips  Code,  but  using 
shorthand  when  he  found  occasion  to  take  anything  ver- 
batim. The  penciled  code  was  transmitted  to  Baltimore, 
Philadelphia,  and  New  York  by  the  regular  operators,  and 
when  the  afternoon  papers  went  to  press,  thus  enabling  him 
to  drop  the  sketch  report.  Mr.  Loper  developed  from  his  Phil- 

243 


lips  Code  and  shorthand  notes  what  is  termed  the  full  re- 
port for  morning  papers.  Of  this  he  supplied  seven  plainly 
written  manifold  copies  at  the  rate  of  2,000  words  per  hour, 
and  I  never  knew  of  a  case  in  which  he  did  not  finish  the 
end  of  the  full  report  by  seven  p.  m.,  unless  the  Senate 
sat  beyond  its  usual  hour — between  four  and  five  p.  m.  He 
often  filed  the  last  of  the  full  report  within  fifteen  minutes 
of  the  time  when  the  Senate  adjourned.  Mr.  Loper  had 
able  predecessors — none  better — and  his  successors  were 
men  of  recognized  ability,  but  they  never  equaled  him,  for 
the  reason  that  they  confined  themselves  to  shorthand  and 
longhand  notes.  But  for  the  Phillips  Code  Mr.  Loper's 
achievements  would  have  been  impossible,  for  he  would  have 
had  no  time  in  which  to  write  out  his  shorthand  notes  until 
the  necessity  for  the  sketch  report  had  passed,  and  the  oper- 
ators could  have  done  nothing  with  them  in  their  original 
form.  They  read  his  penciled  code  report  as  readily  and 
easily  as  they  could  have  read  matter  that  was  written  out 
in  full  and  furnished  in  typewritten  copy.  Mr.  Loper  did 
the  work  of  two  men,  and  did  it  better  than  they  could. 
By  handling  -the  whole  thing,  his  sketch  report  and  his 
full  report  agreed  in  every  particular.  When  one  man 
made  the  sketch  and  another  the  full  report  there  were  vexa- 
tious discrepancies  to  be  reconciled  which  often  delayed  the 
delivery  of  the  report  to  Associated  Press  clients  until  a 
late  hour. 

In  1883,  when  Mr.  Loper  and  I  transferred  our  services 
to  the  then  newly  organized  United  Press  and  went  from 
Washington  to  New  York,  he  began,  and  continued  for  sev- 
eral years  previous  to  Mr.  Beecher's  death,  to  report  the 
sermons  of  that  eloquent  and  able  man.  He  used  the  Phil- 
lips Code  for  his  introductions — always  exquisite  pieces  of 
writing  in  precise  harmony  with  the  style,  tone,  temper, 
and  atmosphere  of  the  particular  sermons  they  preceded. 
This  part  of  his  report  was  handed  to  any  operator  who 
happened  into  the  United  Press  office  on  Sunday,  who  trans- 
mitted from  it,  without  its  being  written  out.  while  Mr. 
Loper  took  a  hasty  luncheon.  He  was  a  star  operator,  as 
well  as  one  of  the  best  Pitman  stenographers  I  ever  knew. 
He  had  mastered  shorthand  in  Wisconsin  at  the  early  age 

244 


of  ten  years.  When  the  assisting  operator  had  disposed  of 
the  introduction  written  in  the  penciled  code.  Mr.  Loper 
took  the  wire  and  proceeded  to  send  in  Phillips  Code,  in 
its  absolute  purity,  at  a  gait  that  made  the  "  Beecher  Cir- 
cuit "  shunned  by  all  but  those  typewriting  operators  who 
were  serenely  confident  that  they  could  take  anything  that 
could  be  transmitted  by  human  hand.  The  report  was  sent 
simultaneously  to  the  Chicago  Tribune,  Cincinnati  En- 
quirer, St.  Louis  Globe-Democrat,  and  Boston  Globe,  all 
of  which  were  connected  together  every  Sunday  for  the 
purpose  of  receiving  Mr.  Loper's  report.  Neither  the  in- 
troduction, in  penciled  code,  or  the  sermon  itself,  which 
was  in  shorthand,  was  ever  written  out.  It  was  desirable 
to  have  this  sermon  in  hand  for  composition  in  the  news- 
paper offices  as  early  as  possible,  and,  under  Mr.  Loper's 
plan  of  reporting,  the  last  line  of  it  was  in  Chicago,  Cin- 
cinnati, St.  Louis  and  Boston  before  Mr.  Beecher  had  fin- 
ished his  dinner  and  got  well  among  the  dreams  incident  to 
an  afternoon  nap. 

Mr.  Loper  used  the  Phillips  Code  with  equal  success  in 
reporting  the  national  conventions  for  afternoon  papers 
in  1888  and  1892.  The  operators  sent  from  his  penciled 
code  and  part  longhand  manuscript,  and  in  spite  of  the 
whirr  of  the  blower  operated  beside  us  in  connection  with 
the  pneumatic  tubes  connecting  the  extemporized  telegraph 
offices  with  the  platform  and  the  reporter's  tables,  the  noise 
and  confusion  incident  to  boys  running  hither  and  thither, 
there  was  never  a  word  of  question  about  the  running  re- 
port for  afternoon  papers  furnished  by  Mr.  Loper,  ably  aided 
and  abetted  by  Mr.  P.  V.  DeGraw,  whose  work  on  the  1884 
conventions  eclipsed  all  that  had  gone  before.  It  was  not 
uncommon  for  Mr.  Loper  to  file  the  announcement  that  the 
convention  had  taken  a  recess  or  adjourned,  and  for  the  oper- 
ator to  send  it  within  one  minute  of  the  time  when  the  gavel 
fell.  We  have  often  had  to  stop  and  explain  to  inquirers 
in  the  convention  hall,  as  we  passed  through  to  our  hotel, 
that  the  convention  had  taken  a  recess  or  had  adjourned 
until  evening,  the  next  morning,  etc.  The  fact  was  known 
from  Boston  to  San  Francisco  before  the  people  in  the  hall 
realized  what  had  happened.     As  an  employer  of  stenogra- 


phcrs  since  1878,  and  among  them  were  many  who  had 
national  reputations,  I  have  seen  them  at  their  best,  and 
they  were  certainly  splendid  on  many  great  occasions,  such 
as  the  reporting  of  the  Potter  Investigating  Committee  pro- 
ceedings in  1878  and  in  covering  the  national  conventions 
for  morning  papers,  all  of  which  were  reported  for  the 
United  Press  under  my  direction  from  1884  to  1896,  inclu- 
sive. But,  for  a  certain  class  of  work  such  as  has  been 
referred  to,  ends  were  secured  by  the  use  of  the  Phillips 
Code  that  could  be  achieved  through  no  other  instrumental- 
ity. The  riles  of  the  afternoon  newspapers  of  the  conven- 
tion years  mentioned,  wherever  published,  give  ample 
evidence  in  their  editorial  columns  that  these  reports  were 
admirably  written,  correct,  and  quite  photographic  in  char- 
acter. They  were  made  by  Mr.  Loper  in  1888  and  1892,  and 
were  largely  written  and  wholly  transmitted  in  the  Phillips 
Code.  Mr.  DeGraw  was  his  coadjutor,  and  after  Mr.  Loper's 
death  applied  to  the  convention  of  1896  the  methods  that 
had  been  so  successful  in  1884,  1888  and  1892. 

The  illustrations  I  have  given  dispose  of  the  notion  that 
abbreviations  cannot  be  easily  read  by  those  who  write  them. 
The  fact  is  that  they  can  and  have  been  read  for  more  than 
twenty  years,  not  only  by  those  who  wrote  them,  but  by 
many  others,  as  I  have  shown.  And  these  are  by  no  means 
isolated  cases.  The  newspaper  profession  is  more  largely 
recruited  from  the  telegraphic  ranks  than  from  any  other 
one  source.  There  are  more  than  one  hundred  telegraph 
operators  on  the  New  York  and  Brooklyn  newspapers 
alone — reporters,  copy  readers  and  editorial  writers.  The 
newspapers  of  the  country  are  largely  manned  by  them  in 
many  of  their  departments.  They  are  not  shorthand  men — 
not  one  in  a  hundred — but  they  are  all  Phillips  Code  men, 
and  when  the  occasions  arise  when  something  swifter  than 
longhand  is  required  they  use  the  Phillips  Code  with  which 
they  familiarized  themselves  in  the  telegraph  business.  Some 
of  the  telegraphers  do  not  stop  at  being  reporters,  copy 
readers,  and  editorial  writers.  They  become  proprietors. 
Mr.  Frank  Munsey  is  one  of  us;  Mr.  Edward  Rosewater, 
of  the  Omaha  Bee,  is  another;  and  Mr.  S.  H.  Kauffmann.one 
of  the  principal  owners  of  the  Washington  Star,  is  a  third. 

246 


The  latter  has  the  honor  of  having  taught  General  Eckert, 
President  of  the  Western  Union  Telegraph  Company,  how 
to  telegraph,  and  when  the  latter  had  qualified  he  succeeded 
Mr.  Kauffmann  as  manager  of  the  telegraph  office  at  Woos- 
ter,  Ohio.  Even  in  those  remote  days  there  was  a  slim 
system  of  abbreviations  used  on  the  wires,  and  the  Phillips 
Code  is  simply  an  expansion  of  those  early  contractions, 
such  as  "  fm  "  for  from,  "  t  "  for  the,  etc.,  etc.  This  system 
has  been  extended  until  you  express  "  The  Senate  adjourned 
until  to-morrow  morning"  thus:  "T  sa  adjd  un  twm."  The 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  is  designated  by  the 
word  "  Scotus,"  and  so  on  ad  infinitum.  The  Phillips  Code 
is  sent  over  the  wire  through  an  instantaneous  mental  trans- 
formation from  the  written  words  lying  beneath  the  opera- 
tor's eye.  It  is  sent  at  double  the  rate  of  speed  of  ordinary 
transmissions,  in  full,  and  is  mentally  digested  by  the  re- 
ceiving operators  and  written  out  on  the  instant  in  full  on 
typewriters  as  it  comes  over  the  wire  at  a  careful  but  some- 
what chirpy  gait.  Handled  in  this  way,  employed  as  it  was 
by  Messrs.  Kennan,  Loper,  DeGraw  and  Hood,  to  say 
nothing  of  its  general  use  by  telegraph  operators  in  every 
conceivable  way  after  they  have  left  the  telegraph  business, 
it  seems  to  me  that  if  Mr.  Kimball  had  been  an  Arkansas 
journalist  and  had  "  traveled  far  and  wandered  wide,"  he 
would  have  a  more  comprehensive  knowledge  than  he  has 
now  of  a  thing  that  has  been  running  under  a  full  head  of 
steam  since  1879,  and  the  fundamental  principles  of  which 
were  laid  fully  fifty  years  ago.  The  appended  is  a  specimen 
of  the  Phillips  Code,  a  fairly  good  knowledge  of  which  can 
be  obtained  in  a  month.  "  Ix  "  is  the  equivalent  of  "it  is," 
and  aside  from  that  and  a  few  arbitrary  signs,  such  as  "  bv  " 
for  believe,  a  good  deal  of  the  specimen  given  below  can 
be  read  by  almost  anybody  whether  he  knows  the  code  or 
not.  The  context,  which  is  much  more  obvious  to  the 
reader  than  are  the  obscurer  signs,  even  to  experts,  used 
by  stenographers,  carries  the  transcriber  along  as  the  strains 
of  martial  music  lighten  the  heavy  feet  of  a  tired  soldier 
and   speed  him  on   his  march. 

T  Amn  sprit  as  ix  eld,  h  a  cntemt  fo  ti's  halowg  inflncs. 
Inded,  it  sems  to  bv  tt  ti  cann  halow,  bt  can  ony  dstroy. 

247 


N  mny  ys  ago  Lafayette  Pic  ws  i  f  most  imposg  patricn 
qrs  o  N  Y.  T  clmrs  o  Bway  ca  to  it  ony  in  a  dremy  murmr. 
Its  length  ws  n  gt,  bt  it  hd  a  lordly  bredth.  Win  easiest 
akc  f  most  busy  purlus.  its  quietud  ws  provrbl.  So  infq  wr 
vhcls  alg  its  pavmt  tt  in  sumr  t  gras  wd  ofn  crop  ot  tr  Ik 
fringy  scrolwrk  nr  t  wl  swept  sidwlk  &  clnly  gutrs.  At  I 
end  4  ts  staly  ave  is  crosd  bi  a  naroer  st  ro  an  imens  chh, 
in  rigid  clascl  stile,  w  t  pinted  roof  o  an  ancnt  tmpl  &  imens 
gra  flutd  pilars  frmg  its  portico. 

All  of  which  is  respectfully  submitted. 

WALTER  P.  PHILLIPS. 
Bridgeport,  Conn.,  March  i,  1902. 


248 


ESTABLISHED   1879 

.5%,   rryk 

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c^^^S'irkJittS^'fSaaESte^^ 

fr^S^ftw**"       IIP'         i^TfTrnrir»™^L^Ll(e'*r'J'" ^WW    ...    '■■■ 

TRADE   MARK 


J.  H.  BUNNELL  &  CO. 

Incorporated 

MANUFACTURERS  and  DEALERS  in  the 
HIGHEST  GRADE  of 

Telegraph  Instruments 

and    Electrical     Apparatus     and    Supplies 

Manufacturers  and  Selling  Agents  for 

PHILLIPS'S  MORSE  AUTOMATIC  TELEGRAPH 

AND  OTHER  SPECIALTIES 

All  drafts,  checks,  and  orders  should  be  made  payable  to  J .  H.  Bunnell  &  Co. 


MAIN  OFFICE  and  WAREROOMS 

20    PARK    PLACE  NEW   YORK 

P.  O.  BOX  1286 


Our  Latest  Model  Legless  Key 

Our  STEEL  LEVER  LEG  and  LEGLESS  KETS  are  the  acknowl- 
edged STANDARDS.  They  are  imitated  by  many  but  equaled  by  none. 
Be  sure  to  get  the  genuine,  with  the  exact  name,  ««  j.    h.    Bunnell   &  co.," 

stamped  on  them. 

Prices  greatly  reduced. 


Our  Standard  Main  Line  Relay 

HIGHEST  GRADE.      Costs  a  little  more  than  the  ordinary  style, 
but  the  improvement  in  service  and  saving  in  repairs  make  it  the  cheapest. 


J.       H.      BUNNELL      &      CO. 

20    Park    Place  New     T  o  rk 


Our  Latest  Type  0/^  Improved 

Giant   Sounder 


With  ALUMINUM  LEVER.      Designed  to  produce  the  highest  quality 
of  resonance  on  a  minimum  of  current. 


J.      H.     BUNNELL 

2  O    Park    Place 


8c       CO. 

New    T  or  k 


The  Latest  "Main  Line  Sounder' 


With  instantaneous  armature  and  tension  adjustments  —  "M.C.M."  model. 
We  furnish  the  "M.C.M."  Main  Line  Sounder  with  or  without  key  on 
base  or  in  mahogany  carrying  case  for  portable  purposes. 


We  will  send  FREE  on  application  our  General  Catalogue,  containing 
descriptions  and  prices  of  the  above  instruments,  and  numerous  others,  such 
as  Pole  Changers,  Repeaters,  Resonators,  Polarized  Relays,  Box  Sounding 
Relays,  Pony  Relays,  Pocket  Relays,  Combination  Sets,  Registers,  Duplex 
and  Quadruplex  Apparatus,  Learners'  Instruments,  Automatic  Telegraph 
Apparatus,  Wireless  Telegraph  Instruments,  Lightning  Arresters,  Switches, 
Spring  Jacks,  Testing  Sets,  Condensers,  Galvanometers,  Rheostats,  Batteries, 
Battery  Gauges,  Volt  and  Ampere  Indicators,  Bells,  Burglar  Alarms, 
Annunciators,  Push  Buttons,  Medical  Batteries,  Wire,  Insulators,  Brackets, 
Construction  Tools,  Telephones,  Dynamos,  Motors,  Lamps,  Sockets,  and 
Electric  Light  and  Power  Fittings  and  Supplies,  Etc.,  Etc. 


Note  well  the  exact  name  and  address 


J.      H.      BUNNELL      &       CO. 

20  Park  Place,  New  York  P.  O.  Box  1286 


UNIVERSITY  OJb  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
Los  Angeles 

This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


Form  L9 — 15m-10,'48  (B1039)444 


THE  LIBRAP.Y 
UNIVERS         <         ^LIFORNIA 

LOa  ANGI3LEB 


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P547s 


II  I  II  II  II    I   II    I 
AA    000  415  220    3 


